


ROCKING AND ROLLING

by a_good_soldier



Series: HANDLING EXPRESSIONS OF WINCHESTER EMOTION: A FIELD GUIDE (or: supernatural s12 codas) [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Consent, Episode: s12e08 LOTUS, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, Recovery, Season/Series 12, Torture, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-11 23:54:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9044963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_good_soldier/pseuds/a_good_soldier
Summary: Dean and Sam are in prison. Dean and Sam get out of prison. It's fairly traumatic for everyone involved.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> It's the holidays, which means it's time for wholesome entertainment such as several thousand words of straight up Winchester torture! Amazing!
> 
> I feel like I need to add a quick warning for mentions of rape/sexual assault; nothing graphic takes place on screen, and these mentions are within a context of general loss of bodily autonomy and torture, so take that as you will. Please read with caution, and feel free to message me at agoodsoldier on tumblr if you want more detailed content or trigger warnings. Also, I've only seen a couple episodes, all out of order, from seasons 9 to 11, which means I literally have no idea what Castiel's status is. Is he an angel? A half-angel? An extra powerful angel? It is a mystery, and my ignorance is very apparent in this fic.
> 
> I haven't totally written the second part of this (a.k.a. the "comfort" part that follows 10,000 words of "hurt"), but I have written some of it and it's mostly planned out, so it will be posted... eventually. Hopefully before the hiatus ends, because it'll definitely be jossed (take a shot every time supernatural skips over essential emotional and physical recovery time) and therefore pointless once episode 9 airs.
> 
> Title from Kansas' "Magnum Opus." The full line is: Rocking and rolling, it's only howling at the moon.
> 
> Lastly, mega thanks to Rachel as always, for being the best cheerleader/writing inspiration/support network a procrastinating shitter like me could ask for. You're the best!

Dean’s been called a dick, an asshole, a bitch, a son of a bitch, and a goddamn idiot more than a couple times in his lifetime, but somehow hearing it from real people makes his skin crawl more than any demon’s leering face. He didn’t know anything about secret government prisons other than what Sam ran across on wikipedia, so he figured he was in for anything from your average maximum security all the way to a straight up torture camp. With his luck, he shouldn’t have been surprised that this place veered more towards the latter.

The spooks separate him and Sam at the first chance they get, which Dean had to admit was smart even if it put a serious kink in their half-formed escape plans. Dean carves in a new tally mark to count the days since he’s seen Sam, which he guesses is also the number of days since he’s been free. Seventeen uneven scratches in the greenish beige paint.

After seventeen days, he’s cynically disdainful of his original hopes for an escape. If praying won’t do it, nothing will; Dean’s recognized that he’s a chewtoy for the staff, and his best bet is to keep his head down and hope they pick some other schmuck a couple cells over to hose down naked. He can’t avoid it for too long, though, because those are the only showers he gets. He’s lost track of weeks; intellectually, he remembers that seventeen days is two weeks and three days, but there’s no Mondays or Thursdays or Sundays here. Just lights-on-for-18-hours time and lights-off-for-6-hours time.

If he’s appalled at the violence committed against him — if he’s surprised that men getting paid by his government have a free license to break into his cell and beat him bloody since they don’t get Casa Erotica pay per view this far below ground — he doesn’t show it, not anymore.

He wonders how Sam’s doing.

* * *

Sam finishes fifty-seven pushups, and then fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty, and decides to take a break there. He’s been going for about three hours now, if you don’t count his warm up.

He only gets two sets of clothes, so he can’t work out more than once every other day, since he rinses his workout clothes in the corner of the cell with near on half of his water ration. The solution, of course, is to just keep working out until he passes out, so he doesn’t notice the sweat on his clothes. He slept naked for the first few days, but at around the third or fourth night the guards popped in to beat the shit out of him, so he decided he’d rather have something covering his junk in case that happened again. It’s only happened twice so far, which is pretty good, since he estimates he’s been here about three weeks. He hasn’t been keeping count of the days. At first he thought marking down tallies or something would be a sign of losing hope since he was so damn sure Cas would come for him, but then he just never got around to starting, and it’s been long enough that he’ll always be bothered by those few days that he’ll have inevitably missed or added on to his count.

Occasionally — like when he’s thinking about tally marks, or has such an intense workout headache that he just has to lie, face down, on his filthy cell floor and let his mind wander — he’ll think about Dean, and wonder whether he’s keeping count. Wonder whether he’s gotten out.

No good thinking that way, though, so he avoids it entirely. Dean wasn’t in the Cage, and Sam survived that, too.

* * *

Day twenty-six. Five groups of five tallies, plus one. Dean eats slowly, since he only gets two meals a day. They stagger them, too, so you can never really keep track of what time it is. Today he got his first meal maybe an hour after the lights turned on. It’s ‘oatmeal.’ It’s always ‘oatmeal.’

Yesterday the tray slid into his room maybe halfway through lights-on time, maybe a little later than that. His second meal came almost immediately after he finished the first one. He didn’t try to save any of it, though. Firstly because trying to hoard oatmeal is friggin’ nasty, and secondly, he tried it once, on day ten or eleven. They took the bowl away and gave him a concussion that night for good measure. He learned his lesson.

Dean’s through half of the oatmeal, so he makes himself stop. He’s found out that they won’t take the food away if he’s holding onto it, but they will if he leaves it near the door.

He’s only thought about food today. It’s a dangerous subject, even if it is safer than most of the other ones he can consider. He imagines pie. Apple pie, cherry pie. Pecan pie. Pumpkin pie, shit, if he had a pumpkin pie in front of him he might scarf it all down and accept the consequences.

He debates finishing the oatmeal now. It’s been maybe ten minutes since he stopped. He’s still got a whole bucket and a half left of water — they refill the two buckets every two days, and he has a little cup to drink out of — so maybe he could have a drink and hope that fills him up just as well as the oatmeal. He hasn’t felt thirsty for a long time; in the beginning, he used to chug down the ACHA-recommended 13 cups a day, before he realized that he had a limited supply. He cut himself down to ten cups, then seven, then four, and he hasn’t looked back since. It fills him with a sick kind of pride, knowing how little he can get by on.

* * *

He’s not drugged. That’s what Sam keeps telling himself, anyway, when they bring the food in and they fill up his water buckets and they tear at his only shirt and knee him in the stomach and pull at his hair. They don’t like that he’s bigger than them and stronger than them, or that they need three men just to hold him down.

They’re not Toni; they won’t drug him up and use him and make him talk that way. They don’t have the resources — Sam’s been looking out for supernatural influences, spellwork or warding, and hasn’t found anything. Not at the grunt level, at least, and Sam doesn’t flatter himself to think that he’s getting beaten on by higher-ups. He’s nothing but pond scum, as his guards are so happy to remind him.

If they’re going to rape him, they can’t make him enjoy it. It’s a comforting thought.

* * *

One time they didn’t turn off the lights. Dean didn’t notice, because he doesn’t have a clock, until maybe around the 30 hour mark. The white fluorescents just stayed on for a whole cycle, until the next night when they turned off for his six hours. He doesn’t remember much about the second half of that two-day light time. He remembers banging on the door, hoarse, asking when they were gonna turn off the lights. Stupid and desperate, that’s what he was. When are you gonna turn off the lights? It was the only good thing he could imagine. Darkness.

Eventually, he’d gotten a meal — they only gave him two meals in that two-day time, too — and with it a gruff voice saying it was still the middle of the day, dumbass. But Dean knows. Dean knows it was two days. He put down two tally marks instead of one. They can’t make him pretend it was one day.

Thirty days. Six groups of five tallies. Ten more days and he’ll be encroaching on Noah’s flood territory.

Or eleven more days, if you believe the guards. But it’s ten. Dean knows the truth.

* * *

Sam doesn’t remember the date when they got caught. It was in December, or the end of November, he thinks. It was a little chilly, but it can be a little chilly in Indiana from October all the way to February, so that doesn’t really help. He wishes he knew what day he left the real world. He wishes he knew how long he’d been here.

It feels like hell, sometimes. It’s been a month or two — long enough for prison habits to form, short enough that he still remembers what the wind was like — but he likes to imagine that it’s only been a day topside. Cas hasn’t even had time to get worried yet. Crowley and Rowena are probably still nagging at him. He’s probably still dealing with that girl with the nephilim fetus. That’s why he hasn’t come for them.

One day, Sam gets a food tray with a bowl of oatmeal right next to a plate of human feces. He plugs his nose, scarfs down the oatmeal, and covers the shit with the now-empty bowl. He wants to puke.

At least it’s better than hell, he thinks. Lucifer’s not here. Lucifer’s not here. Lucifer’s not here. He tries to make it sound grateful in his head. These days, it’s as close as he gets to prayer.

* * *

Thirty-five days. Dean remembers that weeks have seven days in them, which means that it’s been five weeks since he last saw Sam. Five weeks and a day since he last saw Cas, but he doesn’t count since then because that makes him feel even more hopeless than he already is. It’s nice that the weeks and the groups of five tallies have finally aligned. He doesn’t remember how to do the math to figure when it’ll happen next.

Five weeks. That’s like a month, or more than.

Dean’s going to die in here. After facing off against demons and angels and Death, the only god Dean ever trusted, he’s going to die in a filthy shithole run by sadists flying the American flag. Billie’s gonna laugh her ass off when she reaps him.

* * *

“Let’s go,” the woman says. It’s been so long since Sam’s heard anything other than that minimal midwest twang of off-duty soldiers that he almost doesn’t understand the words in their British accent.

Sam stands up, and tries not to sway on his feet. He kept up the working out as much as he could for those first few days or weeks or whatever, but he just hasn’t been getting enough food to sustain it. He knows he’s weak.

“ _Now_ , Sam,” she says, and the door’s open, so Sam takes his chance. He steps out, expecting a hand on the back of his head and a foot or a sledgehammer in his knee, but all he gets is a thick sweater and a black-haired woman with forgettable brown eyes. She’s very pale.

He puts on the sweater, and shivers. He hadn’t noticed he was cold. She starts to walk away, and he follows, because hell, like he’s got anything better to do. If she’s leading him to his death, maybe that’s for the best. She seems ruthless. He could probably goad her into shooting him, point blank, if his other options turn out to be torture or, well, torture. Having a game plan makes him feel more secure.

He follows her, moving in a half-stunned daze, barely noticing the blank-faced guards that they pass. He doesn’t look up until his feet hit something softer than concrete, something with a little more give. Those are clouds, he thinks, and over there, those are trees. What you’re standing on, that’s grass. What you’re breathing, that’s air.

The cloud cover is dense and gray, so the sun isn’t visible, but Sam thinks that’s almost better; if it was a sunny day with birds singing and dogs barking, he’d think it was too good to be true.

She herds him into the black SUV, and he sits, and she doesn’t reach over to him to put him in handcuffs or ankle cuffs or even make him put on a seatbelt. He looks around at the empty backseat as the van starts forward, and stupidly, too late, asks, “Where’s Dean?”

“Sam,” the woman says patronizingly, and he’s starting to like her less and less. “We have limited resources. You and your brother are both useful to us, but Dean’s… more expendable.”

Sam closes his eyes. His brother’s still in there.

Dean is still there.

He’d jump out of the car, start running back to the compound, but he’s been in here long enough that he might not be able to make it back before these British fuckers catch up with him. And the windows are tinted. He has no idea where he even is. That’s what he tells himself.

The real reason, the one that’s crushing his lungs with guilt even before they’ve gotten a good and true taste of fresh air, is that he’s afraid of getting caught again.

* * *

At thirty-nine days — the day before Noah day, as Dean’s called it, because you don’t get holidays in hell so you gotta make up your own — two armed guards come into his cell, and Dean knows he’s in for some serious shit. The usual guys who pop in to make sure he knows his place normally don’t have machine guns.

“What can I do for ya, fellas?” Dean rasps out with his underused vocal cords and a shit-eating grin. If they’d just waited a day to take him out back and put him out of his misery, he could’ve bragged about making it to Noah day to all the swell folks in Hell. Maybe Billie will have mercy on him and take him to the Empty instead.

The guards don’t say anything, and just start dragging Dean down the hallway. Now Dean, he didn’t used to have any kind of self-preservation instincts, no sir, but in this place he’s learned first-hand all about risk assessment. You don’t resist, you get beat. You resist, you get beat worse, or you get a dick in your ass, or you get your face shoved in your own shit. You resist even more, and maybe you get a bullet in your brain.

Dean has yet to determine whether that last one is a positive or a negative.

So here he is, getting dragged out of his cell by two armed guards who look like they’re having even less fun than he is, which is certainly a hard task to accomplish in a situation like this. If he sees clamps or pliers or boiling pots of any kind of liquid, he’s gonna kick up so much of a fuss that they’ll have no choice but to shoot him if they want to save their own skins.

Then they toss him into a cell with a classic set-up on a cart and what Dean instantly recognizes as a thin rectangular vat of sulphuric acid (it was a hit in his days working under Alastair), and leave before he can even throw a single punch.

It was a stupid plan anyway.

* * *

“I want to leave,” Sam says. It feels like it’s been years since he’s wanted anything, but surely it hasn’t. Time slowed down for him in that pit. Maybe it’s 2033, and Sam’s actually fifty years old. Just take him out back and shoot him, God, please, let him die. Let him end.

“Do you even know what day it is?” the woman asks, like she’s rubbing it in. She’s not. Sam likes to think she doesn’t have enough emotion to act spitefully.

Sam breathes out. “No,” he admits.

“January 27th,” she says, “2017.”

It’s a new year.

Hurray.

“Great,” Sam says, wondering if he was getting stripped and slammed into the walls and kicked in the stomach on new year’s eve. Pop the champagne, boys, let’s ring in the new year with style. “Thanks for telling me. I want to leave now.”

“You can’t leave,” she laughs, incredulous. “We need you.”

Sam swallows. He has a fighting chance here, he thinks. He does. He imagines Toni emerging from the shadows — was it good for you, she’d ask, and she’d be talking about the torture, the hosing down, the naked beatings, the starvation, the sleep deprivation — and he’d shake for the shame of his body’s response to her. He wants to leave.

“You can’t need me, because I’m useless to you,” he says. “My intel’s months out of date, I’m at half my physical strength, and no demon or angel will deal with me without Dean.”

“Hmm,” she says. “I think you’re making that up so we’ll go back and fetch your brother.” She smiles. “We burned a lot of bridges just to save you, Sam. Going back for Dean? It’s not going to happen.”

The torture. The hosing down. The naked beatings, the starvation, the sleep deprivation.

Sam sees red, and elbows her in the face.

After that, it’s mostly a blur.

* * *

“Dean,” says the spook in black. It’s been so long since he’s heard his name that he almost doesn’t recognize it. Even in hell, the demons had relished in twisting the consonants. _Dean_ , they’d whispered, oil-slick, savoring the thudding D and the nasal N. It’s not unlike how this guy says it. “We just want to know how you got the drop on our men. That’s all. You give us something that can help us, we might let you see the sun within the next ten years.”

Dean snorts. He’ll be impressed when they hold him for forty years, he tells himself. With the frisson of dread that slinks down his spine when he considers even a decade in this hole, the thought doesn’t ring true. “You want me to rat out my brother,” he says, because he may as well lay his cards on the table. Lucifer was informing them; they know who Sam and Dean Winchester are.

“Yes,” concedes the nameless spook. There are four guards in the room. Even if Dean killed them all — even if Dean killed every man in this building — he wouldn’t know how to get out. He wouldn’t even know where to start. It’s a unique kind of helplessness. “You tell us how he helped you get into that motel room, and maybe you walk — with a leash. A very, very short leash.”

Dean laughs. “Jesus,” he says, because blasphemy’s never bothered him. “I’m supposed to believe I’m down here because you can’t figure out how two thirty year olds snuck into a motel room that charges by the hour? Thought you were supposed to be experts at this.”

The suit smiles, acting flustered. “All right,” he says. “Maybe it’s more about the methods, and less about the venue.”

Dean frowns. What the hell could that—? “He escaped,” he breathes, so desperate for it to be true. If they tell him he’s wrong, it might crush him. He takes the risk anyway. “You want to know how he escaped.”

The spook frowns. “Yes,” he admits, “your brother escaped. We want to know how.”

Dean laughs, giddy and relieved. Sam is out. Sam is out. “You think if I knew I’d be in here?”

“We think you’re still here because that’s part of the plan.”

Dean _wishes_ that were part of the plan. Dean wishes there _was_ a plan. “I don’t know, man, what can I tell you?”

“You expect us to believe your brother left you in here while he walked on out, without your say-so?” The spook laughs. “Pull the other one.”

“Maybe we had a falling out,” Dean tries, as if they’re going to believe that they had a falling out big enough to make Sam leave Dean here willingly, all within thirty-nine days of no contact.

Stars in his eyes; it takes Dean a millisecond to process the pain, and another millisecond to realize that his face was just slammed into the table in front of him.

“You’re not at liberty to be cracking jokes, Winchester,” the suit says. He looks unruffled. He probably beats on helpless prisoners five days a week, and twice as often on weekends. “Tell us what you know, or this gets ugly.”

Dean laughs. “From where I’m sitting,” he drawls, making a show of running his eyes up and down the suit’s body, “the view’s already pretty ugly.”

“Cute.” The spook — Dean’s gotta give him a name, he feels like a conspiracy theorist — picks up a hammer. “Do you know how many bones can be broken in a human finger, Dean Winchester?”

Dean brings out the grin, since it might be the last time he gets to. “But mister,” he says, all pretty-like and batting his lashes like he’s seventeen instead of thirty-seven, “ain’t you gonna buy me dinner before fingering me?”

It ends on a gasp, because the hammer comes down on his left thumb, right at the knuckle. The thumb feels more liquid than it did before, skin and blood the only things holding the top half to the bottom. Dean opens his mouth, and the hammer comes down on the joint connecting his thumb to his hand.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.

Dean closes his eyes against involuntary tears from the pain. He’s had worse, and everyone in the room knows it.

Looks like they’re just getting started.

* * *

Sam comes back to himself in a garden. It smells like flowers he never learned to name, a soft, unobtrusive scent that inexplicably reminds him of Lawrence. He’s never seen these kinds of plants before, but that’s not saying much, since everything he knows about the natural world comes from lore books.

The bees’ buzzing is the first sound to return to him. It’s faint, too, almost as unnoticeable as the flower smell. Then, a small bird chirping intermittently. The wind rustling through the grass.

There’s something different about this place, something surreal or other that Sam can’t identify. He searches around for clues — the stone bench, the forest beyond the garden, the trellis with ivy — and realizes, in a flash, feeling stupid, that it’s warmth. That he’s spent so long cold that the sun on his bare skin feels like a supernatural force.

He turns around at the creak of a door. There’s a house, which he hadn’t noticed before. Red brick outside, dark wood inside. Blood starts to pour over the threshold, staining the garden path, and Sam remembers.

It’s been so long since he’s committed violence like that; the rush of bones breaking under his fists, the satisfying impact of a nearby statue on an oncoming assailant’s head, remind him of the demon blood days, when everything was over-saturated and without consequence.

“Stop,” croaks someone from inside the house. They sound like Dean does when he’s in a nightmare, and Sam can’t break him out. “Stop,” whoever it is keeps repeating, like Sam can stop the pain after the fact, “stop, stop, please, stop…“

Sam turns away from the house and starts walking. It would be merciful of him to go back in there and put that sad fucker out of their misery, but Sam’s no good at giving mercy.

* * *

“I don’t know,” Dean breathes, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

The spook smiles. “Wrong answer, kiddo.”

Dean screams when they soak his foot in acid.

“Lots of nerve endings between the toes, Dean,” says the spook. He pulls off a layer of bubbled skin, and then another, and then ten at once. _Please, please please please_ , Dean keeps murmuring, embarrassed at how little it takes to make him beg. The injustice of it, the fact that he’s already told them all he knows, is what strikes him the most profoundly. At the heart, that’s what makes him break.

The pain does help the process along, though. The pain really helps.

* * *

After stumbling along in a daze, Sam realizes he needs to figure out where the hell he is. It’s getting colder even through his sweater now that the sun’s starting to set. He’s been following the edge of the forest for a while now, keeping to the larger shrubs in case anyone pops up who he needs to hide from. The smart move would’ve been to go back to the house and around to the front, maybe find a car or see if there was a road that way, but it’s too late now. He can’t go back there.

An hour, maybe two, passes and Sam hears the far-distant roar of an eighteen-wheeler. That’s a road, if he keeps walking forward.

Finally, once Sam’s almost on his last legs, he spots some pavement in the distance. He creeps closer, taking care to stay invisible from the highway, and sees a sign, just visible under the newly waxing moon. He’s having great luck. _50 miles to Sandy_ , it reads. _Highway 15_.

Jesus Christ. He’s in Utah.

* * *

“Dean,” the spook sighs, sounding very disappointed. “Dean, Dean, Dean.” It reminds him of Alastair. “This is no good! You gotta give us something if you want to get out of here.”

“I don’t know how he got out,” Dean says. “I don’t know, I swear.”

“Well, then,” the spook says, and Dean has nightmares about that same smile on Alastair’s face. It’ll be nice to see someone new in his dreams. “We’ll just have to get creative.”

* * *

Sam half-walks, half-hitches up to Salt Lake City, and, despite looking and smelling like he’s been living in a concrete hole for a month and a half, manages to acquire a bus ticket to, well, somewhere near enough Lebanon that he feels like he can breathe again. Been a long time since he’s had a place to call home; it’s reassuring to know that the bunker’s survived fifty years, and it’s likely to keep on for another fifty, no matter how many Winchesters screw around in it.

Sam hikes through the tiny town and out the other side, conscious of people following him, feeling naked going home outside of the Impala. He looks around, anxiety growing as each person starts to become a threat: that couple two blocks over a pair of spies for the government, that old man a mile back a British Man of Letters. He does something he’d stopped doing a week into his captivity.

 _Cas_? he prays.

And this time, he gets a response.

* * *

_Hey Cas,_

_I dunno if you’re hearing these. I shoulda stopped praying to you, probably. No point in holding out hope for a dead man, right?_

_I meant me, by the way. I’m the dead man. You’re gonna live forever, or at least as long as angels are supposed to live._

_It hurts, Cas. I don’t wanna hurt anymore. Just wanna go away. I got my share, and believe me, I know I done wrong, but I did my penance. Thirty years under. But maybe I’ll never be forgiven for that last ten._

_You know what the worst part is? I swear, I don’t even know how Sam got out. I don’t know._

_I hope he’s still out._

_You gotta get me outta here, Cas. I know you’d have already got me out if you could, but this is too much. There’s gotta be a limit. I can’t walk — not that they’ve let me try, but I know I can’t. The minute I tell them whatever it is that’ll make them put me back in my cell, I’m gonna keel over and die, right there on the ground like some sad stupid drunk passed out in a ditch._

_I don’t wanna rot away here. If I’m gonna die without seeing the sky again, just let it happen now._

_You heard me, Cas. If you can’t get me out, can you at least kill me? Do you think you could try?_

_Just a knife, right in my throat. I promise, it wouldn’t even hurt, not after this. I wouldn’t even notice it. You’d make it so easy for me._

_I wanna see you again. Even if it’s the last thing I see — I wanna see you again._

_Amen._

* * *

“Sam,” Castiel gasps out, stumbling over his feet. Sam turns around to see Cas, haggard, weary, unkempt. He doesn’t look angelic at all. “Sam, I— how did you get out—”

“I walked,” Sam snaps, suddenly impatient. Obviously Cas couldn’t come for them, and obviously Cas has been trying hard to bring them back, but he can’t— he can’t talk about it. “Sorry, I’m just— can we just— can you—”

“Yes, of course,” Cas interrupts, so desperate to be useful, Christ, what the hell have they become. He puts two fingers on Sam’s forehead, and with a visible wince, lands them about a quarter of a mile outside of the bunker. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ve been weakened, I can’t— flying is difficult, especially with a passenger.”

“It’s fine,” Sam murmurs, and starts walking. It’s only five minutes away, anyway.

In those few short minutes that seem to disperse into eternity, Sam imagines the perfect welcome home. He takes a shower, firstly, a warm one. Then he makes himself food, something easy, solid, like toast. Toast and scrambled eggs, that’s what he makes. He’ll put the bread in the toaster, and crack one egg into the pan, then a second one, and he’ll be careful not to burn himself on the stovetop or the metal mouth of the toaster.

Then he’ll eat. He'll remember to get cutlery, won't eat with his hands; he'll cut the toast into neat perfect triangles, and eat good wholesome forkfuls of eggs along with his toast. He won't worry about what he’ll eat next. And after that? He'll sleep.

Needless to say, it’s a surprise when Mary Winchester opens the bunker door.

“Ma— Mom,” Sam says, confused by the derailment of his plan. “What are you doing here?” he asks, but, “wait, sorry, stupid question.”

Mary smiles. “Castiel sent me a, uh, text message saying you escaped.” She reaches out, and doesn’t seem offended when Sam edges back. Instead, she just turns around and starts down the door, not bothering to wait for Sam or Cas to follow her.

“Mary has been very resourceful in helping me understand the functioning of your government,” Cas intones as they walk down the stairs.

“Great,” Sam deadpans, because there’s not really much else you can say to someone whose first-hand knowledge of American politics ended before the Cold War did.

Mary sets out a box of pizza — it’s still steaming, must’ve got here just before Sam and Cas — as Sam walks into the kitchen. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, but I figured there’s nothing wrong with a good old pepperoni pizza.”

Sam quirks up a lip. She isn’t too wrong about that. “Yeah,” he says, “looks great, I just think— I think I wanna take a shower first,” as though he’s not sure about it. Does he want a shower? Does he have time to take a shower? He’s been ignoring it, but now that he’s safe, he can’t forget that every minute he spends eating pizza and pampering himself Dean is probably getting the shit kicked out of him.

“Take a shower,” Mary says decisively. “The pizza will still be here.”

“Okay.” Sam nods, and nods to Cas, who’s stood there like a sentry. “Okay, I’m gonna go— do that.”

He backs out of the kitchen, avoiding Cas’s stare.

* * *

Dean makes up something about cult connections, studiously avoiding the phrase “men of letters” and throwing in anything he can think of instead. “Hunters,” he says, “we call ourselves hunters, that’s all I can tell you—” and then the acid and the fingernail pulling and he pulls a town out of his ass, pretends to admit, “We have a base, it moves, last I heard it was in Ruidoso, I don’t—”

Apparently that’s enough ‘for now,’ so Dean’s back in his cell. He got thrown right onto his bed, a real full-service establishment they’ve got going on here, so he didn’t even have to worry about trying to walk on the one and a half feet that he still has.

He looks at his tally. Those four tally marks, unconnected, next to the seven crossed groups of five. Thirty-nine, he mumbles to himself. Thirty-nine days. He sounds out the syllables. Thir-tee-nine.

He reaches around for the tiny rock shard that he’d been using to carve out the tallies, but it’s not there anymore. He scrabbles around, but there’s nothing. He considers trying to walk over to the water buckets to peel off a layer of plastic or something — fuck, that’ll hurt — or he could use his fingernails—

He’s still got nine of them. What’s one more?

The diagonal scratch for day number forty happens easily, soft rubble-packed wall giving way under his desperate finger. He decides on a total of three tallies. He could’ve been with them for two days or five, but three feels like a good estimate. If he believes he was there for three, it becomes true, and he doesn’t have to worry about lying to himself.

The forty-first tally mark crumbles under his index finger. His skin starts bleeding; the nail cracks under the upward pressure. The end result is less of a line and more of a vaguely oval blob. He powers through the forty-second, shivering at the nails-on-chalkboard sound of his scratches, determined to get it right. Forty-two days. Two days longer than flood time.

Oh well. He’s still got a long ways to go if he wants to break his downstairs record.

* * *

“Dean’s still there,” Sam finally admits, bolstered by the pizza and the shower. He’s wearing more than one layer; underwear, even.

“I figured,” Mary says. She eats messily, extravagantly — just like Dean. “Cas said we should wait for you to bring it up.”

“I was trying to be sensitive.” Cas frowns. He has one slice of pizza on the paper plate in front of him. It’s untouched.

Sam smiles. “Yeah, thanks, Cas,” he says, shoving down the guilt of leaving Dean behind. “We need to figure out how to get him out.”

“How did you get out?” Mary asks.

Sam realizes, stupidly, that he hasn’t even told them how he got free, more focused on being snippy with Castiel than on thinking of ways to get his brother out of that hellhole. “Right,” he says. “Someone from the British Men of Letters came for me — they wanted me to help them, but I just got the hell out of there.”

Cas frowns. “You hurt them,” he says, and it’s not a question.

Sam remembers the adrenaline. He hadn’t eaten in days, and he’d only just been given a single glass of water — they’d tried to offer him tea, first, but the whole idea of sitting down to have some fucking tea poured into a tiny little cup that his dehydrated ass couldn’t even chug was so absurd that he laughed in their face. So he’d had one glass of water, and then she’d pulled that shit about Dean being more expendable, and then he punched and kicked and clawed his way out of a dozen trained men of letters.

“Yeah,” Sam says, when he realizes they’ve been looking at him strangely for a while. “Not my proudest moment.”

The worst was when he’d shoved that spoon right in someone’s neck. He couldn’t have told you anything about them, how old they were or what color their hair was, nothing other than the color and smell of their blood as it squirted and then glugged over the silverware.

“We couldn’t even find where they were holding you,” Mary says, clearly ready to move on to something new, “let alone a way in, so maybe we need to figure out how those men of letters got you out.”

“I don’t think they’d really be cool with us just knocking on their front door and asking,” Sam says. “It’s a good idea, though.”

Castiel stands. “Yes.” He awkwardly returns his slice of pizza to the box. “I’ll look into it.”

“Wait a sec, Cas,” Sam says. “Where? _How_?”

“I’ll ask.” He smiles, faintly. “I don’t think I’ll knock, though.”

And he’s gone, with a faint flutter.

“Well,” Mary says. “Guess we’d better clean up the pizza.”

* * *

Forty four days looks nice if you write it out in normal numbers, 44, but it’s awkward in the groups of five tallies. He’s nearly down the whole wall now — Dean’s going to have to start a new line, soon. Somehow that feels worse than having started the damn thing. He’s been here long enough that he needs two rows of forty five goddamn tally marks each.

They’re going to give him food. Then they’re going to turn the lights off. Then they’re going to turn the lights on. Then they’re going to give him food. Then they’re going to turn the lights off. Then they’re going to turn the lights on. Ad nauseam.

He doesn’t know a lot of Latin. Ad nauseam. Ad infinitum. Those he knows because of his nerd brother Sam, who liked to pull them out when he’d stay on one topic for too long. _You can’t go on the field trip because we don’t have any money_ , Dean would say. And then Sam would say, _We don’t have any money, so we can’t stay anywhere for more than three months, which means we can’t get normal jobs, which means we’ll never have enough money, which means we’ll never live anywhere for more than three months, ad infinitum!_

He used to pull that a lot, Sammy. All the lawyer words he’d found in books and then probably misused —  _Ad infinitum_ , or when Dad would come home and tell Sam to stop daydreaming about some apple pie life that was never gonna happen, end of discussion, Sam would pull out _argumentum ad lapidem_. Dean doesn’t remember what that one means, but Sam said it a lot for a couple months there: argumentum ad lapidem.

Then Dad told him to shut the hell up with that Latin shit, you damn brat, and that was that.

Dean also knows Latin for exorcising demons. Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus. We exorcise you, every impure spirit.

Kind of a one-hit wonder there.

The food comes in through the door. Second meal of the light-time. Yum, oatmeal.

Words in other languages Dean knows: sí (yes, Spanish), por favor (please, Spanish), bonjour (hello, French, only learned out of a misguided attempt to impress a girl who laughed him out of her house because of his accent). If he ever gets out of this place, he’ll try to learn a language for real. Enochian, maybe. That would be useful.

* * *

“How did you even know we were still alive?” Sam asks. Mary had made an attempt to put the leftovers in the fridge, before Sam took the dishes and the cardboard to the kitchen. He’s a little embarrassed at how eager he is to do things for her, make her proud, but the last time he saw her they were still in the nebulous _I’ll be back someday_ area. Hopefully this time he can at least keep her in the bunker until Dean shows up.

Mary lets Sam take the beer bottle from her on her way to the recycling bin, and raises her hands in surrender as Sam pointedly puts it in. “Castiel heard your prayers,” she says, as Sam cleans around her.

Sam folds the cardboard into the blue bin, and frowns. “He heard… all of our prayers?”

“I guess we can’t know if it was all of them, but he heard them pretty consistently for the first few days, and then they started to die off.” Mary and Sam both wince at her word choice. “Taper off, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Sam clears the table, and pulls out a piece of paper. He frowns at it. “I’m trying to remember the layout of the place from when I got out. I don’t remember a lot.”

Mary sits down across from him. “Anything at all is helpful.”

“Right,” Sam murmurs. He’s almost about to put pen to paper, hoping that something more than indecipherable scribbles will come out, when Castiel arrives. The door creaks open, and he comes down the stairs, looking about the same as he did when he left, if a little more frowny.

“What did you get?”

“I learned that British humans are somehow even more irritating than their American counterparts,” Castiel grumbles, which is such an adorably illogical generalization that Sam can’t stop himself from smiling.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you,” he jokes, because if he thinks about anything more specific about his time with Toni he might vomit. “But seriously, did you get anything we can use?”

He regrets his word choice immediately — he should’ve asked if Cas found anything specific, or anything about the prison, instead of anything of _use_ — but it’s too late, and Castiel doesn’t seem to be offended. “Yes,” Castiel says, back to business. “They used charms to get past the guards — fairly simple, and effective for humans, since there are no wards to keep them out.”

Sam frowns. “Is the place warded against you?”

“Yes.” Castiel frowns. “Against angels, and demons as well.” He looks ashamed, and says, “I asked Crowley for help.”

Sam hates that, but it is what it is. If Crowley could help them get Dean out, Sam wouldn’t like it, but he’d accept it as necessary. “So…” Sam looks to Mary. “We’re going in?”

“You’re not.” Mary’s firm about it, and Sam anticipates a long and brutal argument to let him go — an argument he’s not sure he wants to win. “We’re not talking about it, Sam, you’re not going in. We’ll ask some other hunters for backup.”

Sam laughs. “Who, Jody?” Then he sobers up. “Actually, Jody’s a good choice. But who else? Claire? You’re capable, don’t get me wrong, but you need all the help you can get, and you’re not bringing a teenager into that place.”

“It’s possible that the charms will be less effective if the guards have already seen your face,” says Castiel, the traitor. “It would be more logical for Mary and other humans to go in your stead.”

“Dammit, Cas.” Sam winces almost as soon as the words are out of his mouth, and Cas looks away briefly. Dean’s not even dead, and yet his spirit still lingers. Or something.

“Spellwork,” Castiel murmurs, as though Sam hadn’t slipped up. “Why didn’t we think of spellwork?”

“Because we assumed they’d have wards or counterspells against location spells, and an invisibility spell wouldn’t help us figure out where they were,” Mary says. “We talked about this, Castiel.” She looks at the two of them remembering a man who isn’t gone yet, a man Sam figures she barely even knows, and starts to leave. “I’ll call Jody now,” she says, which isn’t reassuring, since Sam doesn’t want either of them near that place.

“So I’m supposed to sit here and do nothing,” Sam says, when he can speak. “I’m supposed to just—”

“No.” Cas places his hand on Sam’s shoulder, and lets it rest there when Sam doesn’t shrug it off. “You’re supposed to heal. Let us take this burden.”

Sam’s about to say something — he’s not sure what, and it doesn’t matter — when Castiel’s hand goes rigid on his shoulder. “Cas?”

Castiel breathes out, and releases Sam’s shoulder. He’s shaking.

“Cas?” Sam stands up, but Castiel backs away. “Cas, man, what’s—”

“Let me be,” Castiel says, and walks away. It takes Sam a beat too long to follow.

* * *

_Cas, the last time I was away from Sam this long, I was dead. And the time before that, he was._

_How’s that for an opener, huh?_

_I haven’t prayed a lot recently. Don’t think there’s much point. Sam’s out, which means… it means something. It means whatever got him out needs him for something, and that means whoever it is doesn’t need me, which means…_

_Anyway, that’s just what I think. I’m not the smart one here._

_I don’t know any prayers. Like, real ones. I know the Lord's prayer, but I guess it’s kinda stupid to pull that one out when I know for a fact he’s not listening._

_What about Jesus? Is he still kickin’ around? You let him know I think he was cool, even if he was a dumb son of a bitch._

_Yeah, you tell him that too. Dying on his father’s word, like that’s fine. Dying for humanity, like we’re worth it._

_He was on that cross for a long time. I mean, I think he probably was. Everyone says it was hours._

_Then again, I watched Jesus Christ Superstar. That took only, like, five minutes._

_I think I’m sick. It hurts just to— It hurts a lot, Cas. Last time I got real dramatic, and asked you all that stuff, but that’s— hey, I didn’t tell you Sam got out. Maybe I did. I don’t remember._

_Did you find him? Don’t tell him what I said, okay? Tell him I’m holding up. Tell him I’m doing great._

_I don’t wanna die. How’s that for a joke? I don’t wanna die._

_Yeah, I know. Real funny._

_I miss you, man. I ever say that to you? I told you I needed you, and that was true, it was, but it’s more than that. I don’t just need you. I want you._

_Fuck. I shouldn’t have said that._

_Find Sam, okay? Make sure he’s safe. And then come get me. Dear Jesus Christ, if you’re out there, I don’t wanna end up like you, skewered on a stick like a shish kebab. So you better hurry up, whoever the hell is listening, because I’m already halfway there._

_A-fucking-men._

* * *

Sam finds Cas in the garage, looking at the cars. There’s Baby, parked in a prime spot, well taken care of. There’s the other cars that Sam can’t name, because he never cared about classic cars the way Dean and Dad did.

It’s not a scrapyard, but it’s something familiar. Sam still misses the Singer’s Salvage sign, though.

“It was a prayer,” Sam says. It was easy enough to work out once he paused long enough to think it through.

Castiel doesn’t speak for a long time. When he does, he’s hushed, drained. “Yes,” he murmurs. His hand twitches, and he pulls it into a fist, clenches it still.

“So you heard all of our prayers,” Sam says, suddenly ashamed. He’d been a child in that place.

“Yes,” Cas responds. “I am… sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Sam repeats mindlessly. “I called you—”

“Incompetent, foolish, arrogant, and pathetic,” Cas recites, as though it’s a list he’s repeated to himself frequently. For all Sam knows, maybe he has. “You were not wrong.”

“I know you were trying,” Sam says. “It’s not— I was struggling. That doesn’t make what I said true.”

Castiel sighs. “Prayer was the only thing I had of you. Of you both,” he admits. “No matter what you called me, I would have treasured it.”

Sam holds that close, thinks about what it would be like, to be on the outside, ignorant, unable to act. That’s going to be him when Mary goes off on her quest to save his brother— her son. She has every right to be there when Sam can’t. Dean’s her son.

“Dean still prays,” Sam says, quietly, mostly to himself. “What did he pray about this time?”

Cas is silent. Sam tries to follow Cas’s eyes, to see what he sees. He’s looking up. There’s a tiny skylight, warded and salted, barely letting in the sun. It makes him kind of sad, so he looks away, and besides, he doesn’t care about the sun; he only has eyes for Cas. Cas, who has had more contact with his brother than he has. Cas, who knows more about Dean than he does.

“He’s still alive, right?” Sam asks suddenly, because for all his pessimism, he’d never considered that Dean might be dead. Like Dean, trusting, superstitious Dean, Sam always thought he’d just _know_ if Dean ever died.

“Yes,” Cas rushes to reassure him, “yes, Dean is still alive.” He closes his eyes against the weak sunlight. After a pause, he says, “But his prayers… I fear for him, Sam,” he admits, so quiet that Sam strains to hear him. “I know he hides much of what he experiences, and even so, what he says is enough for me to…”

He never says what it’s enough for him to do, and Sam doesn’t need the clarification.

What the hell are they _doing_ to you, Dean?

* * *

Dean’s puking into the drain on the floor when his mom and Jody come to rescue him.

That’s embarrassing.

He shivers through the limp back through the compound, hiding his face from the guards he remembers from that room, pulling back like a nervous horse when they have to walk past that hallway. Stupid instincts; he can be hurt anywhere.

“Shh,” Mom whispers, “shh, shh, Dean, you gotta be just a little quieter, okay? The spell can’t hide us if we’re really loud.”

Dean closes his mouth, and only then realizes that he’s been hiccupping sobs this entire time, like a fucking infant. He keeps limping, lets Jody put his arm around her shoulders, and is suddenly, immediately aware that he’s naked. “Oh fuck,” he whispers, trying to keep it down, the volume and the puke, “oh fuck, I’m naked, sorry, sorry, oh God—”

“It’s okay,” Jody says, gentle as can be. “We’re gonna get you in the car and then we’re gonna get you some clothes, okay? We can’t stop now, but when we get outside, the moment we’re in the car, we’ll get you some clothes.”

“Oh God,” Dean murmurs, tears and snot dripping down his face. He’s a _mess_. “Fuck, sorry, oh God—”

“We’re gonna go outside now,” Jody says, and she sounds really nice. It’s really nice of her to warn him, he thinks, because when they go outside the ground is cold on his feet and the sun is harsh on his eyes. Jody and Mary bundle him into the backseat of an anonymous-looking Toyota, give him a Led Zeppelin T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that Dean knows are Sam’s because they’re both too big for him, and speed out of there, just faster than normal but not fast enough to be suspicious.

Once they cross the electric fence, Jody and Mary let out a sigh, and Dean’s so caught up in it that he lets one out, too, even if he doesn’t feel free yet.

Mary ventures a look back at him, since Jody’s driving, and makes a good attempt at a smile. “We got those out of your closet,” she says, “hope they’re okay.”

Dean’s confused for a moment, so sure that these clothes were Sam’s, until he sees his mom holding his wrist. Her whole hand can go around it, practically. Fuck, he’s lost weight. He’s lost a whole goddamn lot of weight.

“How’d you get me out,” he croaks out, and it sounds terrible enough that Mary grimaces, and reaches into her bag for a bottle of water. It’s fucking Nestle PureLife, the most plastic-tasting of all the water bottle brands with the possible exception of Aquafina (you develop strong water bottle opinions when your options growing up are gas station bottles or motel tap water), but it’s a 2L bottle and he can’t remember the days before his throat ached, so he chugs half of it down and immediately feels sick. “Oh God,” he says, “pull over, I’m gonna puke—”

Jody obligingly pulls over, and Dean leans out of the back door to spew bile and blood all over the gravel shoulder. “Ohhhh, fuck,” he groans, resting his head on the car door for a bit.

“We gotta get moving,” Jody says gently, once Dean’s stopped hacking and heaving all over the damn road, and Mary’s handed him some tissues. “We don’t want them to catch up with us.”

Dean shudders at the thought of going back there, and packs himself up in seconds, back in the seat with used tissues littered all over the floorboards. “Let’s go,” he says, sounding better than he had before.

Jody floors it, and they’re halfway out of the state in what feels like the blink of an eye. As it turns out, Dean just accidentally took a nap/passed out, and he wakes up to Mary sitting next to him in the back, her fingers on his wrist to make sure he’s still kicking.

“Hey,” Mary says. She gives him the water bottle, and he takes measured sips, having learned his lesson. She gives him another tissue, and he wipes at the water that’s collected at the corners of his mouth, in the cracked skin. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine,” Dean says, like he’s not missing a fingernail, like his feet are both whole. His whole body hurts and stings and pulls. Tears gather at the corner of his eyes without his say-so. It _hurts_. “How’d you get me out?”

“A spell,” Mary says, and Jody says, “A damn convoluted one, that’s for sure.”

“What?” Dean blinks. Breathing and participating in a conversation at the same time is hard. “I don’t—”

“We’ll fill you in on the details later,” Mary says, soothing him with a hand in his hair. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s brushing over bruises. “Long story short, we snuck in by being magically invisible.”

“Like an invisibility cloak,” Dean says, already halfway to falling back asleep, and Jody snorts, even if Mary doesn’t get the joke. “Like ‘n Harry…”

And he’s out.

* * *

They needed the full moon to do the spell, according to Rowena.

Fourteen days. That’s how long between Sam’s rescue and Dean’s. Two weeks.

And all of it falls away — the frustration, the tears, the time Sam woke up alone in his bed, screaming, because he thought he’d seen Dean die — when Dean walks— limps out of the car.

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam says, breathless, walking over to him. They’re still in the garage — all of Jody and Mary’s stuff is still in the car, shotguns, hex bags, anything they thought they might need if their don’t-notice-me spell failed — and Sam doesn’t give a shit. “Jesus Christ, Dean.”

“Hiya Sammy,” Dean says, folding into the hug, tiny and vulnerable. He pulls back a little, and Sam steps back to let him see Cas. “ _Cas_ ,” Dean says, and Castiel steps forward, and heals him with a touch. Only Sam notices the tremble in his hands and the strain in his shoulders as he does it.

Dean steps back before Cas can give him a hug, and Cas pulls back, rejected, and Sam— Sam puts it out of his mind, because Dean is there, and Dean is safe. They’re both safe.

“We’re out, Sammy,” Dean says, because he’s never had trouble believing what’s in front of him.

Sam grins, and puts a hand out to rest on Dean’s shoulder, because he can, because he _wants to_. “Yeah,” he laughs, believing it. Believing it’s real. “We’re out.”

* * *

When Dean goes to take a shower, Jody sits Sam down and demands an explanation. “Look,” she says, “I don’t need the nitty gritty blow by blow, I just…” She sighs. “I just want to know what happened, okay? All I get is Mary knocking on my door with that angel in tow, telling me she needs my help to rescue Dean.”

Sam huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, it’s a long story.”

“When isn’t it one?” Jody leans back. “Should I get us a drink?”

Sam nods, and thins his lips in what he hopes looks vaguely like a smile, and stands up. “I’ll get us the bottle.”

* * *

Cas is sitting at their table, watching Sam and Jody get progressively drunker. Dean’s asleep, or passed out, and doing well enough considering the circumstances, according to Cas. Mary’s in her room, brooding over Dad’s journal, which, well. If they needed more proof that she was related to them…

“So you got arrested and sent to a secret prison warded against angels and demons… for exorcising Lucifer out of the President… what the _fuck_?” Jody practically yells, slamming her drink down. Sam’s about seven fingers of whiskey deep, and Jody’s not far behind.

“I _know_ , right?” Sam says, throwing back another drink. They haven’t hit drinking out of the bottle yet, which gives Sam a false sense of security. So long as he has to pour it into a glass, he can’t push his limits too far. It’s a strategy that hasn’t worked so well in the past, but hey, he’s not Dean. He can afford to go wild on a night like this.

Frustratingly, he’s chasing that buzz where everything’s happy and easy, but it seems like tonight he’s skipped right over it into the territory of the depressed alcoholic. Christ, he’s pathetic.

“So…” Jody sips at her next drink, and Sam interrupts her and says, “Let’s go to the couch,” because he wants to lie down somewhere comfortable. Jody follows him, and very kindly brings the whole bottle along, and neither of them thought to bring the glasses. Oh Jesus.

“What I’s _gonna_ say,” Jody says, stumbling around the couch and putting the bottle down on the floor in front of it, “is what _happened_?”

Sam pours himself into the couch, flat on his back, and lets Jody have the far corner, resting his feet on her lap. It’s been long enough since he let someone touch him, he thinks, and laughs.

“Something funny, Sam?” Jody says sternly, but her tone is ruined by her grin and her fingers dancing on his ankles. Sam laughs even harder.

“I’m _drunk_ ,” he says, almost crying with laughter. “I should be having _flashbacks_.”

Jody’s fingers still. “What?”

“Look’a you,” he slurs, poking her thigh with his heel. She settles her hand on his foot, stilling him, and he looks up at the ceiling. “Look’a you, askin’ me things when I’m wasted.” He grins. “You gonna make me beg for it too?”

“Sam,” Jody says softly, and she sounds way more sober than he does, which isn’t good. “Sam, what are you talking about?”

“Never mind,” Sam whispers, “let’s talk about— you wanna know what happened down there, right?”

“I want to know what you want to tell me,” Jody says, which is generous of her, but it’s too late.

“We got beat,” Sam says, because he’s confident it happened to Dean too, “and we got starved, and then they probably fucked Dean up worse than they fucked me up, and that’s…” He closes his eyes. “I don’t wanna go back there,” he tells the ceiling, the underground bunker with its concrete walls closing in.

“You’re not gonna,” Jody says. “Sam, you’re safe. You’re not there anymore.”

“It was pointless,” Sam continues. He heard Jody, he did, but it’s not— does not compute, or whatever. It’s nothing. Lucifer’s riding shotgun, feels like he has been since 1983, and Toni’s burrowed her way under his skin the way no one else has seemed to, and this— Sam tries to think of what he learned from his experience in that prison. Pain and compliance, mostly, which were things he already knew intimately. “The whole fucking thing. Just pointless.”

Jody sits there in silence, commiserating without understanding, and Sam blinks tears back. He reaches for the bottle, but Cas pulls it out of his hands. “You both have had enough,” he says, low and gentle, and pulls Sam’s feet off of Jody’s lap. “Do you think you can find your way to your room, Jody?”

“Yeah,” Jody says, swaying and holding on to the couch. “Yeah, I’m just gonna— go there,” but before she does, Cas reaches over to place his fingers on her forehead.

“Should help with the hangover,” he says, smiling faintly, and Jody doesn’t sway as much when she walks off to the guest room Sam made up for her while he was waiting for them to come back.

“Sam,” Cas murmurs, crouching down so his head is level with Sam’s. “Do you wish to go to your room, or sleep here?”

“Room,” Sam says, and lets Cas hoist him up, and lead him, stumbling, to his room. “Don’ do the— the thing, for Jody, I don’t— Don’ wanna be sober, right now—”

“Okay,” Cas says, and pulls back the covers before letting Sam lie down on the bed.

Sam closes his eyes and rubs his cheek into his pillow, hit with that second boozed-out wind, reveling in the feeling of something soft on his skin. “Don’ wanna move,” he murmurs into the pillow, flying high, so happy and spinny. “Don’ wanna— don’t—”

“It’s okay, Sam,” Cas says, and puts his hand on Sam’s side. It’s a dangerous place, though, and Sam tenses up, even though he was as relaxed and open as anything five seconds ago. Cas moves his hand up to Sam’s shoulder, and that’s safer, if only a little. “I’ll take off your socks.”

“Thanks, Cas,” Sam yawns, and is asleep by the time Cas pulls the blanket up to his shoulders.

* * *

That night, Sam dreams. It’s the first time in however long since his brother was last accessible to him. The sun rises, even though it’s only 2:21 AM according to the alarm clock; Lucifer’s deep, lyrical voice, his true one, the one that Sam could always hear even filtered through Lucifer’s vessels, comes to him as though from far away. His radio turns on, or it was already on. The static mutes him. “Sammy,” Lucifer says, and it’s been so long since Sam’s had this dream that he flinches, which has never happened before. Lucifer laughs. That’s never happened before either. “Oh, Sammy, is this really a dream?”

Sam swallows, and sits up. He says, _What the hell are you doing here?_ , except it doesn’t come out, so he sits there, glaring daggers at his radio.

“I wanted you to be there,” Lucifer says. “Didn’t it remind you of the time we spent together?”

Sam knows it’s futile, but he tries to get up. Fails, unsurprisingly. His feet are too heavy to lift.

“And now you think you’re out.” Lucifer’s voice — sometimes Sam thought it had a body of its own — slithers into Sam’s ears, his mouth, his eyes. “You think you’re free? You think you’ve ever been free?”

Sam chokes on that voice, that beautiful angelic voice, and writhes in his bed. “Oh, sugar,” it says, “you’ve been mine since the day you were born.”

Sam heaves into his trash can, shuddering, sweating buckets, remembering the feeling of another being inside his body, possessing him, _owning_ him.

Satan laughs.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE COMFORT. sam talks about his feelings, dean gets with cas, mary hugs it out, and I ruthlessly throw any possible inklings of a plot out to the curb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for sticking with me! it's here! please enjoy this condensed, totally unfiltered, plotless COMFORT (which is also angsty, because i can't help myself). also, additional warnings for this chapter: suicide mentions and ideation, more mentions of past rape and the consent issues inherent in possession. also i mention the orgy in episode 6 of sense8, which hopefully is understandable in the fic even if you haven't seen it, but just in case, what happens is there is a telepathic orgy that is consensual, but it's a little vague seeing as it's telepathic and everyone's kind of confused as to what's going on. as always, if you need more specific content warnings or want to check if anything at all is in this fic that you want to avoid/be forewarned about it, feel free to send me a message on tumblr at agoodsoldier.

_Dean made a mistake today. This goddamn kid. I leave him with one fucking job, and what the hell does he do? Get Sam fed on by a shtriga._

_Jesus Christ. I’m not cut out for this._

_I miss her. I_ _need_ _her. Every damn day._

Mary swallows at the note, scrawled in the disjointed, too-forceful hand of a drunk, and closes the journal. Who does John think he is, pushing their boys _— her_ boys — into the hunting life, and then blaming them for getting hurt? The two of them sure as hell didn’t get along perfectly when she was alive (and God, it’s still weird to think about it like that), yet here he is, pretending like if she was there he’d be a better father.

This was her responsibility. That’s what she keeps coming back to. If she hadn’t made that deal, her boys would’ve had some kind of normal life — wouldn’t have been raised into this unending quest, a life of horror that she fought so hard against.

She pushes the heel of her hand into her forehead, hard, like she can turn back the clock if she just wishes hard enough. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

But knowing what she does now — knowing what John became, knowing what her boys have done and stopped — could she even bring herself to go back? Would she and John have lasted for more than a couple years before one of them got sick of it and took off?

It feels petty to think about her marriage like that, especially when she knows John made her out to be some kind of saint, especially when it’s nothing in the face of what her boys have gone through, but— she feels, suddenly, that she belongs nowhere. That 1983 holds even less for her than 2016 does.

Her boys have been tortured. They’ve picked themselves back up and dusted themselves off and hopped right back on the hunting train like it’s nothing, being held in a prison for seven weeks. She can’t get the crack of Dean’s voice out of her head: _sorry, sorry, oh God_ , like it was his responsibility to fix what had been done to him.

What does that mean? In 1983, she was struggling with debt, with an absent husband, and two little boys who took up so much space in her life that sometimes she felt she couldn’t breathe for the love of them. In 2016, she doesn’t exist, her husband is dead, and her sons are unsubtle in their attempts to protect her from what’s happened to them.

She looks at the journal, all she has left of John, a man she doesn’t recognize in the bits and pieces of personal information that pop out of the encyclopedic entries. _Dean made a mistake_ , he’d written. Dean must’ve been what, thirteen? Fourteen? Just a kid. Kid mistakes were supposed to be sneaking out to egg your middle school, or toilet paper your most hated teacher’s car. Not a shtriga.

Mary closes her eyes. John: struggling, distant, angry. Then loving, worshipful, and then, even later, dead. Her boys: babies, hungry, needy. Half a decade older than her.

Just that Campbell luck. She imagines clicking her heels together. There’s no place like home.

But where would she end up?

* * *

Castiel is apprehensive when he first enters Heaven, but this is something he needs to do. He ignores the stares of his siblings, breathes through the stench of their hatred. He is reviled, repulsive, branded as a traitor, loyal only to the Winchesters.

If that is what they call him, perhaps it is time for him to step up and act it. It is clear that he will never be welcome in both families.

“Listen to me,” he tells Kemuel, once he has made it through the hallways and the offices, always ready to fight. Kemuel was one of the more distant archangels — they dealt with parceling out land and rewards in the early days, all things far out of Castiel’s reach — but the hierarchies are meaningless now. Castiel was once God, Metatron came out of hiding, and God Himself…

Which is to say, Castiel feels it is his right to speak to Kemuel like this. “This is injustice. What is being done in these human prisons — it is Hell. It is Hell on Earth.”

Kemuel frowns, as much as a celestial wavelength can frown. “The affairs of man are not our concern,” they intone, which is rich coming from a being whose heyday was during God’s most hands-on involvement on Earth.

Castiel doesn’t say that part. He does sigh, though, full of breath, human-like. He’s in his vessel, which he tells himself is because his angelic form would be pathetic next to Kemuel’s; better to be contained in this form, small by choice and not nature. “ _Lucifer_ used these places,” he says. “They are warded against us, which means we cannot see what goes on within them. That makes them our concern.”

Kemuel looks on him with pity, one of the few emotions angels seem to have mastered over the millennia. “This is about the Winchesters,” they say.

“It is,” Castiel admits, because his relationship with Sam and Dean is no secret. “But if I had found out about this through another human, or through my own means, it would be just as cruel. It must be stopped.” Castiel remembers Dean’s prayers — they ring in his mind, days and weeks after the fact. _I want to die_ , Dean had prayed. Dean, luminous, wondrous, valorous Dean who had finally allowed himself to admit that he wanted to live, even if he could only say it with shame — these pigs, human and yet cruel as any demon, had made him beg for death.

“Castiel,” Kemuel replies, not maliciously, but ruthless all the same, “we wash our hands of the Winchesters. They’ve caused enough trouble.”

“Kemuel—”

Kemuel’s form twitches in a way that connotes smugness, or simple uncaring superiority. “Leave them for the reapers.”

The rage builds in him, leaves his pathetic, broken wings shivering in the face of his sibling’s indifference. Empathy, he thinks, where is the empathy?

He has forgotten that this — empathy — is not the angels’ way.

* * *

Dean is making Sam a sandwich.

A couple years ago — or a thousand, maybe, depending on how you count — one of them would’ve made a shitty joke about it. Thanks, _Mom_ , Sam might’ve teased, or Dean might’ve told him not to get any ideas about treating him like a chick.

They’re both awake because the nightmares won’t let them sleep, and their mom is back from the dead. Jokes like that don’t seem so funny anymore.

Dean wonders how the hell he got into cooking. He thought it was Mom — always thought it was her coming through, whenever he sang Sam to sleep with classic rock ballads or found ways to make their latest motel room feel more like a home. She doesn’t cook, though, and she’s known this kind of violence for as long as he has, longer than Dad ever did.

Dean probably just watched too much Food Network as a kid.

So Dean’s making a grilled cheese sandwich because it’s 3 am and Sam deserves some comfort food after a nightmare so loud it woke up both of them, and Dean doesn’t want to think about the mush that they ate for days and days and weeks in— in there. They don’t even know if the place has a name.

They’d tried for a week or two to respond. To enact vengeance, or justice, or something; it never went anywhere, because no one wanted to risk going back there, spell or not, and neither Sam nor Dean remembered anything useful about the place. Besides, what the hell were they gonna do — exorcise the American government?

Dean flips the sandwich. They have enough money, or enough fake credit cards helped along by some angel mojo, to afford real cheese. There’s a lotta shitty things from when he was a kid that Dean still thinks of as comforting, but that plastic KD square cheese crap isn’t one of them.

He slides the sandwich onto a plate, and cuts it in half with the spatula because he’s too lazy to find a knife. “Done, kiddo,” Dean says, because Sam likes having reality narrated to him when he gets like this.

“Yeah,” Sam says, but it’s faint, and Dean is instantly concerned. He turns around, and sets the plate down in front of Sam with a clatter; he doesn’t flinch, and somehow that’s worse than if he had.

Dean waits for a moment, but Sam doesn’t pick up the sandwich. “Hey,” he says, “what’s going through your head, Sammy?”

Sam looks at the sandwich like it has ten heads and all of them are disgusting. “I don’t know if I’m hungry, Dean,” he says, which is bullshit, because he hasn’t eaten in two days. Dean keeps track.

“Okay,” Dean says instead, because Sam gets twitchy about eating sometimes. Not like Dean doesn’t, either, so he can’t blame him. “You want something else?”

“I think I just—  _stop_ ,” Sam snaps suddenly, and Dean just knows that Sam’s seeing Lucifer. God damn it.

“Sam,” he says, “Lucifer’s not here. The place is warded. He can’t get in the bunker.”

“But he’s already in me,” Sam whispers, like it’s an admission of guilt, and Dean can’t even make a crude joke out of it when he sounds that distressed. “I already said yes once, right? I mean, maybe that’s enough for him to— to stay, in me. He doesn’t need to get in the bunker. He’s in _me_.”

“Sam—”

“I can’t do it again,” Sam says into his plate, refusing to look at Dean. Dean rounds the table, moves closer to his brother, who flinches back. That hurts. “I can’t be possessed. If this body becomes someone else’s I won’t make it out alive.”

Dean frowns, and thinks about who’s possessed Sam — Lucifer? Gadreel? Is he bothered by—

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Sam says, and flinches, and mutters, “maybe you do, I know you do, it’s just— I’m not strong like you.”

Dean is afraid to put his hands on his brother, because he’s afraid he’ll hurt him. It hasn’t been long enough since he last felt that way. “You’re plenty strong, Sammy,” he replies, for lack of anything better.

Sam laughs. “Yeah, like— like that’s—” He bows his head. “Dean, they keep going through my head like it’s a filing cabinet and I can’t— I don’t know what’s mine anymore.” He shudders out a breath, and fuck, Dean’s never— this has never _happened_ before— ”I don’t think I’ll ever be clean.”

Dean flashes back to that moment, during the trials, Sam stumbling around, half-delirious with fever.  _They’re purifying me_ , Sam had insisted, like the pain was a gift. Like the pain made him real.

“Sam,” Dean grits out, ashamed like he’s always been, inadequate in the face of his brother’s demons. He tries for something else, but the only thing that comes out, pleading, pathetic, desperate, is “ _Sam_.”

“It’s fine,” Sam says, in the most blatant display of Winchester denial Dean’s seen in a good long while. “I’m fine, I just need some sleep.” He stumbles off the stool, and shrugs off Dean’s hand, reached out to help. “Thanks for the sandwich, I’ll— I’ll eat it later.”

Sam makes his way back to his room, audibly bumping into things on his way, and Dean tells himself it would be childish to throw the plate at the wall. He wraps it up in saran wrap and sticks it in the fridge instead, even though he knows it’s just going to get moldy.

* * *

Cas comes by for dinner one night. Admittedly, he only does it because Mary texts him and asks him to, but Dean’s gonna take the win.

“Dean,” Cas says, while Dean’s checking on the pot roast and keeping an eye on the bread currently rising and stirring the chili he plans to freeze for later. Maybe Dean went a little overboard.

“Cas,” Dean responds, turning around. It’s hot in the bunker, and he’s making comfort food, so there’s no excuse for how cold he feels. He’s not gonna put on a sweater. “How’re you doing?”

“I meant to ask you the same question.” Cas is looking straight at him, like he can see into him, and, well, Dean’s a little worried about what Cas might find.

So Dean just huffs out part of a laugh, and busies himself with finding a glass. “You want something to drink?” he asks.

“No, thank you,” Cas says, which makes Dean opening the cabinet an awkward and useless endeavor, so he accepts defeat and just closes it. Dean turns around, and lets Cas look at him. “In response to your question… I am well,” Cas says, which is good, even if that means nothing coming from any of them. When’s the last time they were honest about how they felt?

“Still working with Crowley?” Dean can’t help but ask. He’s not jealous or anything, obviously. Just worried. Crowley is a demon, after all.

“No.” Cas frowns. “I have been in Heaven. It is a frustrating place to be.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Dean tells himself he doesn’t want a drink. “Why were you up there?”

“I was attempting to convince the angels that the prison where you and Sam were held needed to be destroyed. They did not seem to have the same priorities.”

“Right.” He’d given up hope of retribution already, so it shouldn’t hurt this much, to know that the angels aren’t on his side. He already _knew_ that. Dean checks on the bread again. It looks the same as it did two minutes ago. Of course it does.

“Dean,” Cas says, moving closer. “How are you?”

“Oh, Cas, dude,” Dean laughs, “that’s a big question.”

“I know.” His voice is deep and serious, like it always is. His solemnity is somehow comforting, since the only times Dean can remember Cas laughing freely, carelessly, were when he was possessed by Lucifer and when he was high in that fake 2014 Zachariah showed him. Dean didn’t say it, but he was always thinking about that, about Cas, drunk and high and sedated and fucked out, hopeless, right up until January 1st, 2015.

It’s been a long silence. “Uh,” Dean says, when Cas doesn’t say anything else. “I mean, I’m fine. Just recovering, you know how it is.”

“You went on a werewolf hunt three days ago.” Cas frowns. “This is recovering?”

Dean stirs the chili. He doesn’t look at the bread, because it’s been about three damn minutes, and it’s clearly not even close to being done. He needs more things to be doing right now. “We’re taking it easy. Small hunts, nothing too strenuous. We’re not planning on ganking the Darkness anytime soon, that’s for damn sure,” he jokes. Is it too early to joke about that? Probably.

Cas stands there watching him. Dean’s known him long enough that he doesn’t get creeped out by it anymore, but he does get a little antsy for reasons he’d rather leave unexamined. “I want you to know that I heard your prayers,” Cas says, and _this_ , this is why Dean didn’t want to have this conversation.

“Yeah, Sam told me,” Dean eventually responds, because that’s safe. He turns down the heat, and crouches down to look at the roast. It’s coming along fine, because literally all you’re supposed to do is stick it in the oven and leave it for a couple hours. Damn it.

“You’re on edge.” Cas comes closer, and Dean finally looks at him. He looks good — happy, almost — which is not how he looked during those first couple days after Dean got back, before he took off for parts unknown. For Heaven, apparently. Dean wonders what caused the change. “Am I being distressing?”

“No, Cas, nothing like that, I’m just—” He bites the bullet. “I’m just embarrassed, is all. Nothin’ serious.”

“What could you possibly be embarrassed about?” Cas furrows his brow, and cocks his head to the side, looking for all intents and purposes like the new-to-humanity angel who didn’t know what a toilet or Star Trek was.

“Clearly, nothing,” Dean says, because if he has to say the words _When I said I wanted you, I kind of meant it in a gay way, and also when I thought I was gonna die I kind of hated myself because I thought about you as well as Sam_ he might actually kill himself. (Not actually. He kind of has this whole “X days since our last accident” thing going in his head, except instead of our last accident it’s, y’know, the resurgence of Dean’s desperate yearning for death. He’s currently on his longest run. He’s going for gold, so to speak.)

“Oh.” Cas stands there, evaluating the situation, and Dean needs to either be doing something with his hands or to _not be here_ because Cas’s stare is making the back of his neck prickle. Finally, he says, “If this is about the fact that during what you thought were your last moments, you didn’t limit yourself to thinking of Sam, that is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“What the— Are you reading my thoughts right now?” Shit. Shit? Yeah. _Shit_.

“No, I just recall—” Cas shifts, _shiftily_ , and this whole conversation is seriously right on top of Dean’s last freakin’ nerve. “In those moments,” he says, “your soul cried out very… strongly.”

Dean breathes out. “Okay,” he says, because that’s what you say to things like God’s sister having a weird crush on you and not really understanding the whole concept of bodily autonomy, or having the literal king of Hell on speed dial, or becoming allies with Lucifer, or learning that your soul _cried out strongly_ to your best friend when you thought you were gonna die. What the hell.

“You are still recovering,” Cas says, which is true, but also kind of a non-sequitur.

“Uh, I guess?”

“We should resume this conversation later.” And Cas turns to leave the kitchen, which is somehow worse than him hanging around and making Dean feel anxious and a little nervously pleased.

“No, wait, Cas, come on. Let’s just talk about something else.”

“Okay.” Cas looks around, as though he’s trying to find something to talk about. The just-cleaned kitchen floor isn't gonna help him out, but Dean waits to see what Cas will come up with. It’s kinda cute.

“Dean, do you prefer spray or steam mops? You seem to enjoy housekeeping.”

“Unbelievable.”

* * *

“You doing okay?” Dean nudges a beer over to Sam’s side of the table — they’re burning the midnight oil, supposedly looking through the books for some lore related to a case Claire’s on, but so far they’ve found jack. They’d ask Cas, but he’s been busy with God knows what for the last couple of days, responding to texts sporadically and usually with more emojis than actual words.

Sam smiles briefly, and takes the beer. “Yeah, I’m doin’ okay. What about you?”

Dean does his best to portray pure ignorance. “What do you mean, what about me?” he says, like he doesn’t sometimes limp in the mornings before he remembers that his feet are fine.

Sam sighs, and closes his book. “I gotta say it? I mean, dude, you were there for two weeks longer than I was. Fourteen days.”

Dean snorts. “You counted the days exactly? Gee, you really do care.”

“For God’s _sake_ , Dean!” Sam makes like he’s gonna stand up, but then subsides, sits back down like he’s just too tired to get up and make a fuss. “I had a shitty time. I got beat on and pushed around and I was constantly reminded of the Cage. And I wasn’t there for two weeks after my brother escaped.” Sam takes a long pull of his beer, and adds, “I saw you, before Cas healed you. Dean, you weren’t…”

“What wasn’t I?” Dean asks, chugging down his beer like he can get drunk enough to avoid this conversation in one bottle.

“You weren’t okay.” Sam stands up and walks around the table, to be closer to Dean or to give him a hug or something. “Dean, you keep doing this. You gotta just let me take care of you for a sec, okay?”

“I don’t _need_ taking care of, man!” Dean stands and pulls away. He feels shitty saying it, but, “Look at you, like you’re doing any better.”

“I _am_ , Dean, and it’s because you’ve been here, making me food and letting me rant at you and— and _being there_. Can you just let me return the favor for once?”

“What if I don’t wanna talk about it, huh?” Dean leans against the table, uncaring of the books getting squashed by his butt.

Sam joins him in leaning against the table, and they look at the bunker wall together. There’s a sword, and a bookshelf labeled DANGEROUS, ILL-ADVISED, OR OTHERWISE IRREGULAR SPELLS AND CHARMS. Very topical.

“Just tell me you’re doing okay,” Sam asks quietly. “Or at least better than you were.”

“‘Course I’m better,” Dean says, blatantly latching onto the opening, because he wouldn’t know subtlety in an emotional conversation if it bit him in the ass. “I’m not there anymore, am I?”

“Dean, come on.”

They both stand there, looking at that damn bookshelf, and Dean can’t take the silence anymore. “It sucked, okay?” He doesn’t have any alcohol immediately accessible, and that may be one of the greater tragedies of his life. “I was in pain, and I didn’t know what they wanted to hear, and— and the worst part was…” Dean scrubs his hand through his hair, wanting a way to escape this conversation. Maybe that’s a sign that he’s gotta stick through it. “I thought about what I would do, if I was in his place. I would’ve pulled a fingernail earlier, or I would’ve held off on the acid until after a long break, so the pain would be more intense.”

“Dean—”

“Who the hell thinks like that, huh? Who the hell—” Dean wanders over to the kitchen, looking as casually as he can manage for some whiskey, another beer, hell, wine will do at this point.

“Stop, Dean— damn it, you don’t need more booze.” And why the hell does Sam have to know him so well, anyway? Dean admits defeat, sliding down the side of the kitchen island. Sam joins him on the floor.

“I’m doing okay if you’re doing okay,” Dean says, because that’s true. That’s always been true.

“I’m better than I was when you were gone.”

“Okay.” Dean looks at the cabinets in front of them, full of pots and pans. If he smashed them all against the walls, shattered the tile and dented the metal, someone would hear, and come for him. Someone would be worried. Jesus Christ, the thought makes him grateful. How sick is that?

“What’d they do to you?”

“Sam—”

“Dean, come on.” Sam’s looking at him, Dean can tell, so Dean is careful to avoid meeting his eyes. “You need to talk about it. And God knows I get it.”

Yeah. If anyone does, it’s Sam. “They made you remember,” Dean says, a little bit because he wants Sam to give him something in exchange for Dean spilling his guts all over the place. Mostly, though, it’s because he wants to hear Sam say _yeah, and compared to all the other shit I’ve been through, this was nothing, I’m not even hurt_ more than anything.

“Yeah, and it— it’s still messing with my head, Dean.” Well there goes that hope. “I mean, I just— I couldn’t stop thinking about the Cage, and what Lucifer would do to me. When he’d—” Sam’s throat catches, and this, this is why Dean needs Lucifer to be living in torturous solitude for, well, ever.

“When he’d do what, Sammy?” Dean doesn’t want Sam to answer his question. Dean really doesn’t want Sam to answer his question.

And Sam doesn’t. Instead, he goes: “You ever have the same thing happen to you, over and over, so you— you think it’s gonna happen again, but then it doesn’t, and you just— you’re, like, more confused and screwed up than you think you would’ve been if they just did it?”

What? “What?”

“People, using your body. Without your consent.” Sam swallows. “That’s what I’m talking about. The thing, that keeps happening.”

This is way beyond Dean’s pay grade. Sam needs a therapist. _Dean_ needs a therapist. “Sam—”

“Sorry,” he says, what the hell. “I keep talking about me, when we’re supposed to be talking about you.”

“We can be talking about both of us, Sam.” And as it turns out, preferably with a trained professional to help deal with the words _people using your body without your consent_. When Dean hears the word consent, sirens start screeching in his head. Kenny Loggins starts singing _danger zooone_.

“Okay,” Sam says, “so let’s talk about both of us.”

Dean huffs out a breath of a laugh. “What happened to no chick flick moments, huh?”

“Torture.” Dean looks over to see Sam with a grim smile on his face. “Torture happened.”

Yeah, okay. Fair enough.

“I think I was there for three days,” Dean says, because now that he’s out he’s allowed to doubt. When he was in there, he wouldn’t have even dared to think the words _I think_ when it came to the day count. “They wanted to know how you got out.”

“ _Jesus_.” Sam bangs the back of his head against the kitchen island, and closes his eyes to hold in the pain, the way Dean does when he gets a little too riled up. “I didn’t— I didn’t think—”

“You weren’t supposed to think about that, Sam, you were supposed to get out. Don’t you start blaming yourself for this.”

“Okay,” Sam whispers, “okay, okay.”

Dean breathes out. “It hurt.” He starts tearing up a bit, just thinking about it, which— which is not the _point_ of this exercise, although what the point _is_ is something he’s kinda lost track of. “Hurt real bad, Sammy.”

“Dean—”

“That’s all I wanna say.” He doesn’t need to relive it now; he does it every time he sleeps. “I don’t— I mean, I appreciate the hugs and sympathy, I really do, but I can’t—”

“That’s all you gotta say, Dean.” Sam sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Dean rests his head against the wall behind him. _I deserved it_ , he almost says, but he’s not ready to hear Sam deny it.

“We’re doing okay,” he says instead, because he wants the confirmation.

Sam breathes out, a long puff of air. “Are we?”

“Yeah.” Dean doesn’t look at Sam, doesn’t want to see his face. This is as close as he’ll get to an admission. “Or at least, we will be.”

“Okay.” Sam pats him on the shoulder, and lets his hand rest there, and Dean tries not to appear too grateful. “Okay.”

* * *

It’s the next morning, and Dean is decidedly not thinking about last night. The two of them are seriously — _seriously_ — fucked up, but well. Nothing a good pancake and some real Canadian maple syrup can’t fix.

“I don’t like Cas in Heaven.” Dean wedges his spatula under his pancake — which Cas could be eating too, if he wasn’t in fucking _Heaven_ , or wherever the hell he is — and slides it onto the growing stack next to him. “I mean, it’s not safe.”

“Right,” Sam says. “And this doesn’t have to do with you wanting him here, does it?”

“What, like you don’t?” Dean turns around to look at Sam, who nods, as if to say _fair enough_. “This is the safest place for him.”

“Yeah, I know. I’d feel better if he was here too.” Then he smirks. “But it’s a little different for you, isn’t it?”

Dean flashes back to Sam prodding and pushing. _Shouldn’t it be Deastiel_? “Don’t you even start.”

“Come on, Dean. It’s been years. After what we’ve been through, don’t you think—” At Dean’s glare, Sam backs down. “Okay, okay, never mind.” Dean sets the pancakes on the table, just as Sam whispers, “ _Casdean_.”

“Shut up and eat your pancakes.”

* * *

“Hey, Mom?” Mary looks up to see Dean, knocking at her open door. “Can I come in for a sec?”

Mary smiles. “Yeah, of course, baby.” She puts John’s journal away in her side table — it’s not gonna do either of them any favors to have that thing out in the open.

Dean hesitates on the threshold, and looks at her room; it’s not homely, not personal, just a room, and Mary knows that hurts him. Dean glances between the bed where she’s sitting and the seat at the desk. He takes the seat.

Dean — her boy, her first born, a thirty-seven year old _man_ — sits, and swallows, and twiddles his thumbs. Mary sits up. It’s so _hard_ , reaching out to Dean, with his expectations and her memories; Sam is a blank slate and somehow that’s easier, even if in the long run it means she’s more likely to make mistakes along the way with him, bigger ones.

“How’re you doing?” Dean asks.

Mary shrugs. She’s been keeping to herself lately, putting in appearances at dinner and joining them on hunts, sometimes, but mostly laying low. She’s still searching for her purpose, and she’s still not really sure if it’s here, not yet. “I’m doing okay. What about you? You’re…” She looks at him. “Are you doing better?”

“I’m fine,” Dean says, like it’s instinct, and he shakes his head the moment he says it. “No, damn it, I—” He breathes out. She watches him, sees John in the way he hides his eyes, the way he holds his shoulders when he hurts. He doesn’t say anything else.

“What’s wrong, Dean?” Mary asks, in her mom-voice, and she almost regrets it — this is a _man_ , not a four year old — except that Dean loosens up and manages to look her in the eyes.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” he says. His voice is so low. He sounds just like John. Like her father. “I keep remembering what happened in there. It’s not—” his voice breaks, and Mary aches for him, this boy who took on these burdens and never had anyone to hold him through it. “It’s not fun stuff, Mom. It’s not.”

Mary thinks back to the nights when John would wake up, sweat streaming down his forehead, remembering the war. It’s not the same — nothing could be the same as living through that hell in Vietnam, and well, nothing could be the same as living through _Hell_ — but he liked her to ask what he dreamed of, and he liked her to tell him it was a memory, and that it wasn’t real. She can do that for Dean. “What do you remember?”

Dean swallows. “You burned,” he says, and this is not familiar ground. John never said that to her. Never brought up her hurts. “That’s— that’s worse than anything up here, worse than I could—” He breathes out. “I swear, I’m not trying to make it sound the same, I know it’s not—”

“Dean, of course you’re not, I’d never think—”

“But you know how it _hurts_.” Dean looks her in the eyes, and she hates what she sees in them. This isn’t what she wanted for them. “You remember it. You live with it. _How?_ ”

Mary looks at her hands. She killed someone, days after she returned to the land of the living. “I don’t know,” she says, because she doesn’t even know how she’s alive in the first place. “I think about other things instead. I think about all the people I miss, and all the wonderful people I’ve met.” She smiles at Dean. “I think about you.”

Dean looks so, so young. “What do you think about me?”

Mary is almost about to cry. How can he not know? No matter how hard this was for her — and it was, it still is — he has to know that she didn’t leave because she was disappointed in him. “I think about how proud I am of you, Dean,” she says, and she doesn’t miss the tears he blinks back. “I think about how sad I am to have missed so much of your life — both of your lives. That I didn’t have any part in shaping the men you and Sam grew up to be.”

“We’re not good men.” Dean looks away from her, at her collarbone, the wall behind her, anywhere but her eyes.

“You suffered, and you kept going, and you saved people along the way.” Mary thinks about the coldness of her father, the violence she inherited and passed down to her children despite her best efforts, and is amazed that her sons have managed to become this loving. To become this gentle. “That’s good to me.”

Dean frowns at her bedspread. “Thank you,” he says, hoarse. “But…” He looks up at her, again, and— ”If I didn’t deserve it,” he grits out, “then why did it happen?”

Oh, Dean. _Dean._ Mary slides to the edge the bed to hold Dean’s hands. “Dean,” she says, “sometimes bad things happen to good people.”

“I’m not—”

“Or bad people, or just regular in the middle people, Dean. No matter what you’ve done, you didn’t deserve this.” She pulls him in, until he’s off the chair, kneeling in front of her. “Baby,” she whispers, hugging him close, his head in her stomach, “I’m sorry.”

Dean breathes in, and starts to shake, and even if the last time she held him through his tears was when he was four, she knows what to do with this. “It hurt, Mom,” he whispers, and she holds him tighter. “It still hurts. It hurts all the time.”

“It’ll get better, Dean,” she says, kissing the top of his head. She has to believe it — for him, and for herself. “It’ll get better.”

* * *

Cas is back for dinner again. Dean’s not sure who’s responsible for it this time, Sam or Mom, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. _It’ll get better_ , he remembers, and who knows? Maybe it actually will. “Here we are again,” he says, for lack of anything better.

“Yes.” Cas smiles. “Here we are.”

Dean’s not cooking anything, just setting the table for some warmed up leftovers (he tells himself he wouldn’t have made anything even if he knew earlier that Cas was coming, but that’s kind of a lie), so Cas helps this time around. Dean feels more grounded. He puts down the last pair of cutlery — apparently you’re supposed to put the knife and fork on different sides or something, but Dean’s not that far domesticated yet — and looks at his handiwork. “Thanks for the help, man.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Cas says, looking down at the table, suddenly serious, and that makes Dean nervous. He’s always nervous around Cas, and it’s not always fun.

“Well, you _could_ sit around being a couch potato, y’know,” Dean replies, like that’s not what he desperately wants to wake up to each morning. He doesn’t add _and that would be fine_ , but hopes Cas gets the message anyway.

Cas’s mouth twitches up, before he looks back up at Dean. “I prefer to be useful.”

“Well, you don’t _have_ to be,” Dean says, needing it to be out there. The risks are pretty low on this one. “You could just… hang out.”

He stops himself from going further. _Hang out_ , Jesus, like Cas needs him begging for his presence. Oh please, Cas, won’t you stay, Dean imagines himself saying in a falsetto, like a fangirl from a Supernatural convention. Ridiculous.

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas says reverently, like he’s been offered the world, which seems disproportionate. As much as Dean loves having a home, the bunker is pretty much just a glorified underground concrete bomb shelter. Even if his mattress does have memory foam.

Dean goes to the kitchen, and Cas follows him. “You sure you don’t want a drink or anything?”

“I’m fine, Dean.” Cas watches as Dean gets himself a beer.

He takes a swig of it, even if it’s a little less effective in the courage-making department than tequila. “The conversation we took a raincheck on,” he says, and thank God Cas doesn’t ask him to clarify.

“Yes,” Cas says, when it looks like Dean’s not planning on continuing anytime soon.

“Yeah, uh,” Dean picks at the label on his beer. “I kinda— I wanna say something,” and now he’s set himself up, so he’s _gotta_ say it.

“Yes, Dean?” Cas prompts, and obviously he knows, he’s gotta know by now, but it’s just so _nerve wracking_ to say it in words. It’s easier to pretend it’s nothing, because it took him years to even think about batting for more than one team, let alone the fact that he’s batting for an _angel of the Lord_.

Not that he usually uses baseball analogies for sex. Because that would be weird.

“I’m fucked up,” he starts, because Cas has to know what he’s in for, and also because Dean is clearly incapable of having a normal goddamn conversation. “I’m— I mean, you know me, I’m a shitload of repressed emotional issues, I just got back from a recent torture vacay, my last long-term relationship ended because I had to _wipe their memories_ —”

“Dean.” Cas moves closer to him, squinting fondly, which in all honesty is a weird fucking thing to be able to do. “Are you trying to ask me something?”

Dean breathes out, and looks at the angel in front of him. He’s okay. Even if Dean fucks it all up, Cas is gonna live through it, because he’s lived through everything else. Cas is _safe_ , or as safe as safe gets around Winchesters. “I want you,” Dean hears himself say, and it’s not exactly what he had in mind but he’ll take it. “I want you here, I want you with me, I want—”

“Are you inviting me into your home, Dean?” Cas steps forward, and they’re so close, now, almost pressed against the kitchen counter. Dean can’t _breathe_ with Cas looking at him like that.

“Yeah,” he says, “and anywhere else you wanna be, too.”

He said it. He said it he said it he said it he _said it_ — “I want that too,” Cas says, and Dean breathes out a sigh of relief. “I want to be yours, if you’ll have me.”

“Weren’t you listening?” Dean works up the courage to grab Cas’s hand, and weave their fingers together. Things are really looking up for him.

Cas smiles, and steps just a little closer, and Dean wants to _kiss him_ —

“Hey,” Sam says, looking between the two of them with barely concealed amusement. “Uh, dinner?”

Dean leans his forehead against Cas’s shoulder and groans. “Sam, I hate you.”

“Okay,” Sam responds, “your stew’s getting cold.”

As Sam leaves them in peace, Dean tilts his head back up to Cas. “Raincheck?”

Dean feels Cas’s hand snaking around his waist to the small of his back, and Cas leans down to brush his lips against Dean’s, and then pull him in deep. Dean can’t help the murmured _oh my god_ that sneaks out of him, into Cas’s mouth, loving the gentle press of Cas’s mouth on his, his breath on Dean’s tongue.

“Dinner!” Sam calls out pointedly, and Cas steps back, not a hair out of place, while Dean just _knows_ he looks like he just ran a marathon. Or, you know, had a kinda life-changing first kiss with an angel he’s pretty sure he’s been half in love with for like, half a decade.

“I suspect I will enjoy this raincheck more than the last one,” Cas murmurs, and Dean can’t help it. He laughs.

* * *

Sam hates angels.

With exceptions, obviously, or rather, _one_ exception. And even Cas has fucked up in his own ways, but Sam has to forgive it, because if Cas doesn’t deserve to be forgiven, then what hope does Sam have?

Cas is out, and Mary’s in her room, reading John’s journal or sleeping, probably, since it’s half past midnight. Sam usually doesn’t even start thinking about going to bed until 1, most nights, and then it’s a toss up between a couple hours of shuteye interspersed with various nightmares, or just lying there, staring at the ceiling, barely able to bring himself to close his eyes for fear of what he’ll see. What he’ll remember.

Dean’s watching Sense8 on Netflix, and Sam sits down heavily on the couch next to him.

“Uh,” Dean says, right as an orgy starts playing on screen. Sam’s already seen the show, but Dean’s acting like his virgin eyes will be appalled by the sight of so many naked people. “I can change it?”

“‘S fine, Dean,” Sam says. He closes his eyes, and lets Macy Gray’s voice wash over him. _All of your demons will wither away_ , she sings, over the muted moans and breaths of a bunch of hot people having accidental sex with each other. He can’t help but huff out a laugh.

Sam can hear Dean swallowing next to him. “Cas recommended the show,” he says finally.

“Yeah?” Sam cracks his eyes open. Nomi and Lito and Will are floating closer to Wolfgang, skin on skin on skin and— Sam can’t stop himself from thinking the words _forced pleasure_ , and that’s— that’s not even what’s _happening_ in the show, not even a remotely comparable situation—

“Can you skip this part,” Sam says, hoarse. There’s like, only a minute left. The beat’s building— Will is lifting weights, and then Lito is there, in his mind, without his— without—

“What, not a fan of orgies? Sam, I’m disappointed.” Dean’s joking, and looking over at Sam, and he’s going to know, he’s going to know that Sam’s fucked up if he sees—

“It’s just— it’s stupid, anyway, never mind, it’s almost over—”

Dean pauses the show, at a thankfully mostly-innocuous shot of Will’s face as he kisses Wolfgang’s temple, or maybe his cheek. “Hey, man. Seriously, what’s up?”

In his mind. In his mind. It all comes back to fucking Toni, _fucking_ Toni, in all senses of the damn word, it’s— he’s trapped. He’s always trapped, in his mind, in his body, in a cell with four walls and one locked door, in a Cage with nothing except, sometimes, furtive glances through the bars to the rest of Hell, where it seemed like even the demons were kinder than Lucifer.

“I’m okay,” Sam manages to say, and it’s more for him than it is for Dean.

“Yeah,” Dean says, and puts his hand on Sam’s back, right as it becomes his neck, and somehow it’s grounding even though the shock of it makes him flinch. Dean pulls back his hand, but Sam reaches behind himself for it, and keeps Dean’s hand on him, keeps it on his neck, holding him down, keeping him on Earth. “Yeah, you’re okay.”

Sam breathes. “Sorry,” he says, as the tension mounts higher, God, he’s so _weak_ , “I know you wanted— wanted to watch—”

“It’s fine,” Dean says, “It’s on Netflix, man, I can watch it later.” He’s rubbing circles on Sam’s back, so Sam focuses on those.

Inhale, exhale. “You think you’re fine and then— and then the stupidest things, the stupidest things make you remember—”

“I know.” Dean pulls him in, and Sam’s head is under Dean’s arm, right in his side. “Hey, I know, okay? I can’t—” Sam can feel Dean’s chest expand and then contract as he breathes. “You know that show, How It’s Made? Where they explain how shit like toothpicks and soap bars are made? I used to watch it when I couldn’t fall asleep, because it’s so damn boring. Used to put me right out. But now, I can’t even think about it, because of the machinery. There’s too much metal, man, and whenever they have episodes where there are blades, or fire, I lose it. Or when we’re out, and I see someone lighting up a smoke or something? I gotta— I mean, I can’t even smell smoked meat, unless I’m the one cooking it. Reminds me too much of— of the smell of my own feet. My own skin.”

Sam pulls himself up, and puts his arm around Dean’s shoulder, because there’s nothing else he can do in the face of that. Dean has given him something, an admission, and he wants to give him something in return. “Sex,” he says. “On TV, or if someone, someone wants— anyway. That. That’s my— thing.”

Dean blows out a breath. “Jesus Christ, Sam.”

“Or, or mind stuff. When I’m reminded of, of seeing things.” And he’s on a roll, now, so he adds, “Being trapped.”

Dean croaks out, “Sam—”

“I just need time.” Sam looks at the TV. “I’ll get over it eventually. I just need time.” He looks at Dean. “What do you need?”

Dean looks like he’s about to brush it off, but Sam glares at him, so he subsides. They watch the screen as Dean scrolls through the sex scene to safer ground. Dean doesn’t hit play, though. “I need people,” he says. “I just— I need to know that there are people. Around me.”

“Who care about you,” Sam adds, because that’s important. “People who care about you. Dean, you have that.”

“I know.” And Dean even looks like he believes it. “I know.”

Sam settles in, and reaches over, and hits the play button. They’ve got each other, and they have other people, and they have a home, and — if they play their cards right — they might even have time to spare.

* * *

“Don’t talk to me.” Dean storms out of the Impala, striding out of the garage.

“Dean— _Dean_ ,” Sam calls. “Damn it, Dean.”

“Shut the hell up.” Dean’s gonna regret that in the morning — he’s gonna regret a lotta things in the morning — but he’s too raw to think about it now. He’s shaking. Christ, it was an easy hunt, cooperative law enforcement, obvious clues. But a single vampire gets the drop on him, pulls his hair, and he’s—

Sam clocked the vamp, and chopped the heads off the rest of them, and watched as Dean got his shit together.

 _Dean_ , says the spook in his memories. The spook Dean never saw again, the spook Dean never got to kill, because he was human, because he’s protected by the government. Because it’s easier to drop off the face of the earth if you stay on it than if you slunk off to Heaven or Hell. _Dean, I just want to know one thing_.

Fire, scouring his skin. Hair pulled out by the roots. _How did Sam get out_?

“I don’t know,” Dean mutters, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Sam’s saying, “hey, hey, hey, you’re okay, Dean, you’re okay.”

“I know,” Dean grits out, because reality’s never been his problem, it’s Sam’s. He can’t— he can’t be having this problem. It’s not the way it’s supposed to go. He breathes in, and releases the memory, easy and fast. He’s lucky. He’s lucky he was only in Hell for forty years. He’s lucky he’s never had anyone root around in his mind the way Sam has.

“Hey, Cas,” Sam says, over Dean’s head. Dean’s on the floor. He doesn’t remember that, not really, but he knows he’s the one who chose to sit down; unlike Sam, he doesn’t have the luxury of knowing his actions aren’t his own. He’s responsible for what he does.

That’s an ugly thought. Jesus, what a fucking piece of work he is.

“What’s wrong?” Cas kneels down to help Dean up, while Sam watches. “Dean, what happened?”

“It’s nothing,” Dean says. He shoves Cas out of his way, wincing when he hears Cas’s body slam into the wall. Fuck. _Fuck_ . Here he is, fucking it all up. “Sorry,” he mutters, and hell, even saying the word is a first for him. He has to be better than this, but he’s _not_ , so what the hell is Cas even doing with him? What the hell are Sam and Cas even here for? He leaves to take a shower, forcing himself to ignore the soft murmur of Sam and Cas talking. About him, without a doubt. Fuck it.

The water reminds him that he’s here, that he’s not in that prison, but somehow that’s worse. He’s here, and he just pushed Cas aside, just shoved the worst of himself in Sam and Cas’s faces. The only blessing is that Mary wasn’t there when it happened.

Dean washes away the grime of the hunt, runs his own fingers with shampoo through his own hair to clean it. He avoids tugging at it, at first, but then he thinks— well, why the hell should he? Why does he get to leave it behind, when Sam dreams about Lucifer every night, when Cas watches Netflix twelve hours a day to try to escape the feeling of Lucifer and Naomi in his mind?

Tears gather at the corners of his eyes as he pulls his hair and scrubs at his skin roughly, heedless of his fingers banging against the shower wall, half-hoping one of them snaps, just to have the pain to focus on. He’s allowed to cry here. The water washes it all away.

Finally, Dean turns off the water. The silence is almost too much. The silence reminds him of Amara, and her overwhelming power. Just give in, and become one with the Darkness. It would be so—

But he has a streak to keep up. He’s gonna stick around, whether he likes it or not, and he’s not gonna wish otherwise. Not anymore.

Dean steps out of the shower, and dries himself off. He walks out in a pair of boxers, the only thing he bothered to bring into the bathroom with him, and Cas is sitting on his bed. Figures.

“Hey, Cas,” he says. He decides to put a shirt on. He can’t stop himself from picking the softest Zeppelin t-shirt he owns, even as he hates himself for it.

“Dean.” Cas doesn’t get up from the bed. His shoes and his coat are off, which means he plans to stay, and that’s— well. Dean can make it worth his while. “Are you all right?”

“Should be asking you that.” Dean slides onto the bed, leans in towards Cas. “I’m sorry I pushed you.” He cups Cas’s face with his palm, so fucking grateful that Cas doesn’t flinch away. “Think I can make it up to you?”

He leans in, and thank God, Cas kisses him back, doesn’t leave him hanging. They break apart after a moment, and Cas sighs. “You have no need to make it up to me. You were hurting.”

“That’s no excuse.” It’s not. He’s— this is really fucked. He’s really fucked.

“Then I forgive you.” Cas kisses him again, and Dean’s— this is more, this is so much more than he could’ve ever earned. _The grace of God cannot be earned; it is a gift_ , he remembers different pastors saying, during the great American road trip that was his childhood. “Dean. Are you hurt?”

That would be a good excuse, but he doesn’t have a scratch on him. “Nah, Cas. Let’s worry about you, okay?” He unbuttons the first of Cas’s buttons, and Cas doesn’t stop him. “What do you want, huh? Anything you want, we can do.” They haven’t had sex yet, which is baffling to Dean, since he’s here and he’s willing and surely Cas has some pent up energy he wants to let out. And it’s not like Dean doesn’t want it. Of course he does.

“Dean.” Cas hums into another kiss, but brings his hands up to hold Dean’s wrists as he reaches for the second button. “Dean, we don’t have to have sex tonight.” He smiles against Dean’s mouth. “We have all the time in the world.”

“But do you want to?” Dean’s fixated on this. This is something he can do. “C’mon, anything— we stay in your comfort zone, if you don’t want to, that’s fine, we just—” He’s suddenly struck with the thought that Cas doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to, ever, and not in a— that would be okay, sure, angels probably don’t really want to have sex, seems a little too sinful, but— he is immediately, totally irrationally _certain_ that Cas doesn’t want to have sex with Dean because he’s disgusting. Because he’s tainted, because his soul is too withered and soot-stained to be worth anything. And if Dean can’t give him sex, then what the hell else can he—

“I want to,” Cas murmurs in between kisses. “Dean, I want to, but not tonight.”

“Why _not_?” Dean knows he’s acting like a dick, but he has to know. He’s too fucked up. That’s gotta be it, he’s too—

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Cas frowns at him, stern, and Dean leans back and sighs.

“I’m sorry, you’re right,” he says. “Jesus, I’m sorry, I’m fucking it all up—”

“You’re not fucking it up.” Cas kisses him again, and leaves his hand on the side of Dean’s neck. It’s a brand, a searing heat that makes him melt. He wants to be Cas’s. He wants to be loved. “Dean, you have experienced significant trauma. I don’t think this is a night to do something… something that I think is very meaningful.”

Dean closes his eyes. “It’s meaningful to me too,” he says, in case Cas doesn’t get that. “Okay, I’m sorry.” He pulls Cas’s hand off his neck, and stands up. “Look, I’ll just—”

“Where are you going?”

Dean looks at Cas. “I mean, if we’re not— I’m just gonna, y’know. Grab a beer, or something.” Revel in the memory of someone’s hands on him, caring and careful, and hope it can happen again.

“Do you not—” Cas swallows. “Do you not want to stay?”

How? How are they so _bad_ at this? “Cas, man—”

“I know you want comfort.” Ouch. “And I— I’m worried, for you, I care about you, and you’ve been hurt, and I want— This is not all or nothing, Dean.”

Dean sits back down on the bed. Finally, he decides it’s been enough. He’ll lay it all out, for Cas to take it or leave it. “Okay. I want—” He breathes out. “Can I stay?”

“Yes,” Cas says quietly. “Please.”

Dean leans forward, until his forehead is touching Cas’s. Cas reaches up to put his hand on the back of Dean’s neck, and that’s— Dean shudders, under the feeling of a warm hand, holding him with affection. “This is all you want,” Dean clarifies, as Cas brings his other arm around Dean’s back. “Just this,” as Cas pulls his hand on Dean’s neck back, to pull the covers away and make space for Dean.

“Yes,” Cas whispers into Dean’s mouth, as Dean pulls up his legs, lies down next to him. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Dean closes his eyes, and rests his head on Cas’s thigh. Cas runs his fingers through Dean’s hair, stroking them down to his shoulders, up and down his side. “You’re safe here, Dean,” he says, low and soft, and Dean brings up his hands to clutch at Cas’s shins, his calves. His solid, warm body. “You’re here, with me.”

And Dean kisses Cas’s skin, and breathes in deep, and sends up a prayer of gratitude to whoever out there might be listening.

* * *

Mary ropes Sam into doing the dishes with her, while Cas and Dean (and it’s kind of a weird shift to know that they’ve got their shit together, finally, but it’s also comforting) watch TV. Seems like the only thing they do these days; Netflix and kill.

Sam puts the last plate on its shelf, and Mary wipes down the sink. “You want a beer, Mom?” Sam says, which is a weird sentence, one he literally never thought he would say, but she says _yeah_ , and he pulls out a couple of bottles. They sit together at the kitchen island, breathing in sync, watching Cas and Dean play totally platonic footsie.

“You ever want to settle down, Sam?” Mary looks over at the two of them, sitting together on the couch. “Like them?”

Sam is taken aback. He didn’t think they’d gotten around to telling Mary yet. “Uh—”

“They haven’t told me yet, but a mother knows.” She smiles. “I think it’s sweet. If a little weird.” She pulls a face. “I mean, that’s an _angel_.”

“Right,” Sam says, trying to reconcile this Mary with John, who never said a word in public, just marched on coldly whenever he saw someone he thought was queer, saving his disgust for the privacy of their motel room of the month. “Yeah.”

After a while of looking at his brother and his angel, smiling back when Dean catches his eye once, Sam breathes out. “No, I don’t want anything like that. Not right now. Can’t think of anyone I’d want to spend the rest of my life with, except Dean.” He looks up at Mary, and scrambles to say, “Not like _that_ , I just meant—”

“I know what you meant, Sam,” she says, a little confused. Right. She doesn’t know about — Sam represses a shudder — _Wincest_.

“There’s been some confusion in the past,” he mutters, to explain the vehemence.

“Uh huh.” Mary looks at him kinda like he’s lost his marbles. “So… no one in your life right now?”

She’s teasing, trying to draw something out of him, a confession or some kind of mother/son bonding. She doesn’t know she’s pressing on old bruises.

“Being with me usually ends up pretty bad for the other person,” he gets out. He’s been responsible for enough collateral damage that he’s learned his damn lesson. “And anyway, right now, I don’t like thinking about…”

“About what, Sam?”

Sex, he wants to say, sex sex sex, it’s always about sex, and when it’s not, it’s worse. He’s built like a machine and everyone wants a ride. “Nothing.”

After a moment, Mary nods. She chugs down half her beer and visibly steadies herself, like she’s about to take a risk. “My sister didn’t want to date for a while, either,” she starts.

Sam frowns. “I didn’t know you had a sister.” _I had an aunt_ , he thinks.

“Died before you were born,” Mary says. “Vampire.”

Sam can only imagine — best case scenario, she got killed by a vampire, but from the look on his mom’s face, she got turned, and they had to put her down. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago, even for me,” Mary says. “It’s in the past. My point is, you can tell me things. If you just don’t want to date, fine, that’s your choice, but it seems like there might be something else.” Sam swallows, and runs his fingers through his hair again, just for something to do with his hands. “Tell me I’m wrong. Please.”

“What happened to your sister?” he asks instead, because this is dangerous territory.

Mary closes her eyes, and whispers a quiet _damn it_ that Sam pretends he doesn’t hear. “Came stumbling home one night, drunk out of her mind,” Mary says, so, so quietly. “Next morning, I hear her puking up bile in the toilet, long past when she should’ve been if it was just a hangover. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that the night before, some guy…” Mary takes a swig of her beer. “You can guess the rest.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “guess I can.”

Mary reaches out, but stops before she touches Sam. “Tell me that’s just a story to you,” she pleads. “Tell me you don’t get why I told it to you.”

Sam smiles, laughs weakly, and takes his mom’s hand. “Wish I could, Mom.”

A tear rolls down her face before she wipes it off roughly. “Baby, I’m so sorry,” she says, and Sam likes the sound of that, of being treated with care.

“It’s okay,” he tells her, because he’s older than she is, and because he’s someplace safe, and because it’s out in the open, now. He didn’t know he needed that.

“Come here,” she says, and he could resist, he _could_ , but he chooses not to, and that makes her embrace feel more like comfort than an angel’s healing grace or a pat on the back from God.

* * *

It’s been a month since Dean got back, a month and a half since Sam did. Somehow, they’re doing okay.

Sam brought them out here with some excuse about lore or witch poison or something, but Sam can tell that Dean knows he just wanted an excuse to hang out in the Men of Letters greenhouse. Which isn’t even anything to be ashamed of; the place is cool. It’s the only part of the property that’s not below ground, and even though the greenhouse is surrounded by trees for extra security and you have to walk half a mile to get to it from the bunker, you can see the sun through the roof, and that’s already a step up from the rest of the place.

After examining the weird plant he found in a spellbook, Sam sits on the bench next to Dean, and ignores the similarities to a certain other garden that he may or may not have killed and smashed his way out of. According to Cas, the British Men of Letters aren’t gonna be an issue anymore, at least not about the kidnapping and using for unspecified British MoL purposes, so that’s one thing off their backs.

“We keep going,” Dean says suddenly. Sam looks over at him. “We made it through, and that’s all there is to it. We keep going.” He looks back towards the bunker, where they left Cas and Mary to attempt to make some kind of dinner. Or really, where Cas and Mary shooed them out, claiming that it was their turn to make some food after Dean kept cooking extravagantly delicious meals for all of them.

Kinda weird that they’re, like, buddies now, but Sam’s not gonna get cut up about it. The people he loves all have people who aren’t Sam to rely on, and that’s reassuring. He’s got less weight on his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Sam says eventually. He looks at the forest through the glass panes, the curling poisons and magical herbs that have lived through decades of neglect. “And maybe one day…” He hates that this is what he dreams of, that when Billie said the words _The Empty_ he felt a kind of release, but it is what it is. “Maybe one day it’ll be over.”

Dean nods. He hopes for it too, even if it is less immediately than Sam does. It’s one thing they understand about each other. “Yeah,” he says. Then he grins wickedly. “But today… is not that day.”

“Oh come _on_ ,” Sam groans. His fucking brother.

“Yeah, well, it’s true,” Dean says. “We’re not dead yet.”

“No,” Sam says, lip twitching in something resembling a smile. “Not yet.”


End file.
